DAILY CONFERENCE PROGRAM
Tuesday June 5, 2001


Tuesday June 5
Keynote 
(8:45 to 10:00 a.m.)
Tom Rich
Auditorium 1
Session 1 
(10:30 a.m. to 11:15 a.m.)
Epp
One Size does not Fit All: Adaptive Technology Update
Assistive/Adaptive Technology
Luchs
Designing Digital Portfolios
Curriculum Integration of IT - Application
McAuley
Mentoring in a Knowledge-Building Community
Teacher Professional Development
Parsons
Authentic Learning in a Technology Rich Public School
Curriculum Integration of IT - Application
Barnstead
Integrating the Electronic Text Centre into Teaching and Research: The Kuzmin Collection Project Curriculum Integration of IT - Application
Room 2016
 

Room 2017
 

Room 2021
 

Room 2022
 

Room 2198
 


Session 2 
(11:30 a.m. to 12:15 p.m.)
Welsford
Literacy Skill Development through Multimedia for Youth at Risk
Assistive/Adaptive Technology  /   Educational Media Production
Campbell
Sociocultural Impact of Virtual Teaching: the 3rd Shift
Curriculum Integration of IT - Research  / Online/Distance Education
Leung
Using the Web in the Classroom
Curriculum Integration of IT - Research
Doiron 
Building Information Literacy: an Electronic Document for Developing Media and Information Literacy
Information Access and Management
Groen
E-Learning Standards and Specifications
Information Access and Management
Room 2016
 

Room 2017
 

Room 2198
 

Room 2022
 
 

Room 2021
 

LUNCH (12:30 to 1:45 p.m.)
LUNCH (12:30 to 1:45 p.m.)
Session 3
(1:45p.m. to 2:30 p.m.)
Trites 
Special Needs Technology Resource Support Team (START)
Assistive/Adaptive Technology
Webster 
Better Online Research through Instructor/Library Cooperation
Curriculum Integration of IT - Application  /  Information Access and Management
Kakkar
International Online Courses: Teaching a Culturally Diverse Group of Learners
Curriculum Integration of IT - Research  /  Online/Distance Education
Fletcher
Race Rocks.com - an Island of Technology in a Sea of  Education
Business Education Partnerships  /   Curriculum Integration of IT - Application
Groen
E-Learning Standards and Specifications
Information Access and Management
Room 2016 
 

Room 2017 
 

Room 2022 
 

Room 2198
 

Room 2021
 

Session 4
(3:00 p.m. to 3:45 p.m.)
Schmetzke
Barriers to Barrier-Free Distance Education: Problems and Strategies for Change
Assistive/Adaptive Technology  / Online/Distance Education
Wozney
Factors Affecting Teachers' Perceptions and Integration of Computer Technologies
Curriculum Integration of IT - Research
Proctor
A Constructivist Alternative to the Cognitive Based Models for Developing Interactive Multimedia Learning Resources
Curriculum Integration of IT - Research
Daniels 
A Novel Approach to Distance Education
Online/Distance Education
Syme 
Integrating Information Technology with Art Education
Curriculum Integration of IT - Application
Davis
Classroom Video on Demand
Business Education Partnerships  / Online/Distance Education
Room 2016
 

Room 2017
 

Room 2021
 

Room 2022
 

Room 2198
 

Room 2041

Session 5
(4:00 p.m. to 4:45 p.m.)
Hof
Digital Talking Books The DAISY Way
Assistive/Adaptive Technology
Raju 
The Alberta Distance Learning Centre
Administration and Management  /  Online/Distance Education
Finlay 
The Web and Academic Departments: Case Studies of Organizational Change
Administration and Management  /   Curriculum Integration of IT - Research
Munro 
The Interdisciplinary Middle Years Multimedia (IMYM) Project
Curriculum Integration of IT - Application  /   Curriculum Integration of IT - Research
Burka
The PEI Science and Technology Awareness Site:  A valuable tool for enhancing science literacy in the community
Curriculum Integration of IT - Application
Cardwell
Setting and Communicating Internet Policies
Business Education PartnershipsInformation Access and Management
Room 2016
 

Room 2017
 

Room 2021
 

Room 2022
 

Room 2198
 

Room 2041
 


Evening
Seafood Buffet - Pier 21 
(Entertainment: Fiddlers Dave MacIsaac and Louis Benoit)

Barnstead, John A.
Russian Studies, Dalhousie University
Integrating the Electronic Text Centre into Teaching and Research: The Kuzmin Collection Project
The Electronic Text Centre at Dalhousie University is a service providing World Wide Web access to full-text documents resulting from faculty and student research projects in the humanities, scholarly publications, university materials, and special projects.  As part of this initiative, the Kuzmin Collection presents a broad and growing collection of primary and secondary materials associated with Russian poet, novelist, dramatist, and composer Mikhail Kuzmin (1872-1936), a key figure in the development of the twentieth century Russian avant-garde.  This presentation discusses the ways in which the project has evolved to become increasingly integrated into ongoing teaching and research.  The Kuzmin Collection Project has engendered a continuing cooperative effort between the Electronic Text Centre and the Canada World Youth organization, which brings young Canadians and Russians to the Centre for training and work experience in information technology, including examination of the SGML/XML text encoding initiative, web page design, QuickTime Virtual Reality (QTVR), and issues of Russian-English translation; moreover, elements of the project have been introduced into upper-level language classes to expand potential employment skills of our graduates.  Research into neglected aspects of Kuzmin's  musical compositions and settings of his poetry by such figures of the "repressed Russian avant-garde" as Anatolii Akeksandrov (1888-1982), has been facilitated by use of computer-assisted music transcription (the Finale 2000 program). The Electronic Text Centre allows the presentation of this research to a widely-scattered scholarly audience at minimal expense, in a much more useful form than would be possible using traditional forms of publication, even were they financially feasible.  By giving students "hands-on" experience in ongoing scholarly research and translation, and by providing the means to examine the interrelationships of poetry, music, and the visual arts, the Dalhousie University Electronic Text Centre makes a growing contribution to the life of the University and its mission to serve the community.

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Burka, John
Professor, Anatomy & Physiology
The PEI Science and Technology Awareness Site:  A valuable tool for enhancing science literacy in the community
The PEI Science and Technology Awareness Site (STAS) is the outgrowth of science awareness activities and Science Fair work at the University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI).  A website, situated on the internet at http://stas.edu.pe.ca, was started in 1997 and since then has grown, expanded, and been revised to make it interactive.
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Campbell, Katy
Academic Technologies for Learning, University of Alberta
Sociocultural Impact of Virtual Teaching: the 3rd Shift
Faculty at most post-secondary institutions in Canada are encouraged to transform their teaching practice and embrace learning technologies.  This is occuring at the same time that quality of life issues (e.g. workloads,  stress-related leaves, etc.) are taking a toll on the academic, research, and social lives of teaching faculty.  There is a growing body of literature reflecting the learnrs' contexts, but administrations also need to consider the situation from the instructors' point of view. This presentation will outline a pilot research project investigating the impact of teaching in technology-enhanced and distributed environments on the individual's work and social life. A potential outcome of this discussion is identifying related issues at institutions and in classrooms across Canada, and developing an instructional support/faculty development model.
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Cardwell, Mary
Marketing Manager, SurfControl
Setting and Communicating Internet Policies
The Internet has changed the face of education forever.   Students can visit Paris with the click of a mouse, as well as learn how to build a bomb or join a cult.  Educators need tools and practices to help embrace technology and the Internet while protecting their students and the performance of their IT systems.
Internet access policies are complex and controversial.  Communication of Internet policies to parents, students and staff can be complicated, but it is essential that all these groups understand the policies and the reasoning behind them.
Another factor that is gaining importance is protecting IT performance.  Bandwidth used to surf to non-learning sites can hinder system performance.  With the increasing popularity of downloading or streaming video and audio files, a district's already taxed T1 line can be halted by oversized entertainment files leaving little or no bandwidth for learning-related projects.
This presentation will address setting Internet policies, communicating these policies and implementing filtering systems with tips from educators who have done it successfully.   The implementation of filtering using Microsoft Proxy Server will also be discussed.
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Daniels, Dr. Cupido
Radiology Department, Dalhousie University
A Novel Approach to Distance Education
A novel approach to distance education via the Internet has been developed by which the educational content is delivered via the Internet but learning occurs off-line.  From a student's perspective, course delivery occurs in the following sequence: (a) Download and install a base program (typically 2 MB) which contains the structure of the course and all the multimedia interactivity, (b) download and install the content for each module (typically 250 KB per module).  In media rich courses such as radiology, the media can either be distributed via CD-ROM, or be downloaded off the Internet.  Each student is assigned a login-ID and password - when they log onto the program, an Internet connection is required so that student authentication can occur with the web-server.  Once authorization has occurred, students can disconnect from the Internet and work through the content which has previously been downloaded onto their local computers.  Two courses, one for medical students, and one for allied health professional students have already been successfully delivered by this method.  The web page from which students download the course material is http://medix.medicine.dal.ca/radiology
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Davis, John
Managing Directory, Classroom Video
Classroom Video on Demand
All our 300 videos have been digitized as MPEG-1 and stored on a hard disk drive.  This 76 GB HDD can be attached to a laptop via firewire.  Classroom Video has developed an interface searchable by subject, grade and keyword.  There is almost instantaneous access to a selected video.  Teachers’ guides for the videos are available as PDF files.  Programs can be played from a variety of access points (like chapter headings); the viewer can grab frames from the video and text from the guides.  This system can operate over a network with up to 40 clients accessing the HDD simultaneously.  New videos would be sent to clients on CD and could be added to the collection as they are produced.
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Doiron, Ray
Associate Professor, Faculty of Education, University of Prince Edward Island
Building Information Literacy: an Electronic Document for Developing Media and Information Literacy
During this session, participants will be introduced to an innovative and interactive   information literacy tool which is unlike other paper or electronic documents. Building Information Literacy provides all educators, including teacher-librarians, with a complete framework for  information literacy skill development as well as curriculum-based student learning outcomes.

Through a demonstration and slide presentation, particpants will learn about the planning, development, and  implementation model used in creating the document, and you will discover its application to integrated school  library programs; this electronic document includes: a collection of exemplary resource-based learning projects (from entry to grade twelve, developed by school-based educators), information technology activities (including web-based projects), facilitated discussion about information literacy and resource-based learning

You will have ample opportunity to consider how you might apply this model to your particular situation.  Come prepared for a truly interactive  learning experience and discover why educators and curriculum developers in Atlantic Canada and beyond are excited about this approach to building students' media and information literacy.

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Epp, Mary Anne
Director of Contract Administration, Library Services, Langara College
One Size does not Fit All: Adaptive Technology Update
Adaptive Technology for students with disabilities is a constant challenge as well as a new opportunity for opening doors to teaching and learning in a new way.  Many issues have been identified to the National Library of Canada's Task Force on Access to Information for Print Disabled Canadians.  The issues include: public policy on accessible formats such as accessible Web design and online courses, Canadian laws relating to copyright exemptions for people with perceptual disabilities, standards for production of taped books, large print, electronic text, and braille, new technological innovations such as the Digital Audio systems for production of audiobooks, and training for accessibility providers.    Mary Anne Epp will describe some of the applications of adaptive technology in the college setting.

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Finlay, Jeff
Assistant Director, Center for the Virtual University, University of Maryland
The Web and Academic Departments: Case Studies of Organizational Change
While educational research has paid much attention to the experience of individual faculty members teaching Web-enhanced courses, the ways academic departments have responded to this technology or changed their practices as a result are not at all well known. This presentation examines how academic departments in a variety of settings have adapted technology, specifically the Web, in process transforming both their own identities and the role assigned to technology within those departments.

Strategies for utilizing the Web by academic departments have taken many forms. Some departments have chosen to create online resources as a multimedia backbone for a range of courses. Some have digitized and put online local collections or bodies of material germane to the discipline represented in the department. Some have distributed Web resources for use by faculty on an as needed basis. All such technology adaptation has commonly required extensive resources, such as grants, equipment, space, support services, and staffing. But it is also clear that the effect is transformative when the means to sustain the adaptation over time is found.

Because the use of Web-enhanced resources and media in instruction requires considerable preparation and readiness, its managers are forced to focus on pedagogy; thus departments adapting the Web for instructional use have inevitably reoriented themselves so as to place special emphasis on pedagogy training and effective teaching. In many cases departments that have embraced the Web have made strategic changes in the way they work and in the educational goals they strive to meet, and the Web resources being developed by the department have come to serve as catalysts in assisting this change. Departments which previously had no public identity can acquire high public visibility as centers of educational excellence through this use of technology.

The information in this presentation is based on research conducted from 1999-2000 interviewing chairs of a number of departments in the United States and Canada. The presentation is illustrated by examples of departments that have followed one or another model of Web adaptation, or that have been particularly successful in realizing the goals with which they initiated the adaptation.

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Fletcher, Gary
Pearson College of the Pacific
Race Rocks.com - an Island of Technology in a Sea of  Education
“racerocks.com” An Island of Technology in a Sea of Education is a presentation of the racerocks.com website and a live interactive webcast from the Race Rocks Marine Protected Area in the Strait of Juan de Fuca. It provides an example of the versatility of live webcasting and an interactive website for distance education.
The following is an outline of the session:.
This presentation consists of a review of some of the features and resources of the racerocks.com website and will include a live transmission of an intertidal or subtidal session direct from the Pacific Coast (weather permitting) . A summary of the program follows:
      1. The startup of the racerocks.com Project
      a) The destaffing of a lighthouse stimulates a vision for an ecologically sustainable
      future.
      b) The role of the Millennium partnership program and other partners in the startup
      of the project.
      c) The adoption of Sorenson Broadcaster and QuickTime streaming as the key to
      bringing the site to the internet.
      d) Problem solving along the way.

      2. The Education model:
      a) The role of our own students in learning by doing.
      b) Involvement of other schools, colleges and museums in distance education using
      racerocks.com
      c) Environmental Action using Internet technologies as a process in education.
      d) The educational vision.

      3. Projections for the future:
      a) After phase 2,(environmental sensors) - what?
      b) Parallel applications of the technology model.
      c) Can the model work elsewhere?

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Groen, Cliff
Program Manager, Multimedia Learning Group, Information Highway Applications Branch, Industry Canada
E-Learning Standards and Specifications
 The rapidly emerging e-learning industry will be unable to reach its full potential unless appropriate technical standards are developed and adopted to promote interoperability and the re-use of full or partial learning object packages.  Multiple international initiatives are underway to
address this fundamental problem.  These include IMS, Dublin Core, SCORM, IEEE-LOM, and others.

This presentation will review the status of these initiatives and describe Industry Canada's involvement with e-learning specifications and standards, specifically through its membership in the IMS Global Learning Consortium, Inc.   IMS is an international organization created to develop and promote open specifications for facilitating online distributed learning activities, such as locating and using educational content,
tracking learner progress, reporting learner performance, and facilitating interoperability between educational administrative systems.

Through this session, participants will have an opportunity to become more aware of e-learning specifications and standards and the impact on their activities, describe their interest in this area, identify concerns, and help build a visible network of stakeholders within Canada.

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Hof, Kees
Manager, Instructional Media Services, Langara College
Digital Talking Books The DAISY Way.
Describes how Langara College ushered in the new digital audio technology synchronized with electronic text to create the new talking book.  The impetus came from a federal Millennium project funded through a partnership with Canadian National Institute for the Blind and three other Canadian agencies to develop the technology and create a body of Canadian heritage works in alternate accessible formats.

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Kakkar, Mariam
Education Department, Concordia University
International Online Courses: Teaching a Culturally Diverse Group of Learners
Academic departments in international organizations worldwide have been influenced by the emerging technological innovations in distance education. That is, courses that have been traditionally taught in a classroom are now offered via distance education through the world wide web. The historical development of distance education has occurred for the most part in the United States. Most, if not all the research on distance education has focused on a homogeneous population. With current global trends, cross-cultural communication has now moved beyond the arena of governments and diplomats.

Educators designing and developing courses for an international audience must design courses that are congruent with cross-cultural theories. Unfortunately, there are very few studies that have explored this issue. We are currently working on a project with the International Air Transport Association to re-design a course from a classroom based medium to a web based medium. The main question which this project explores is: what are the conditions necessary for distance education courses to met the needs of an international group of learners? Our objectives in designing the course are the following: to encourage active participation from all participants including non-native speakers , to  develop support structures for a culturally diverse group and to identify what the disadvantages and advantages of distance education are for a group of diverse learners.

We hope that the findings from this project can provide educators designing distance education course for an international audience with both the theoretical and practical foundations to design effective on-line environments.

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Leung, Kit Hang
Department of Education and Counselling Psychology, McGill University
Using the Web in the Classroom
In 1989, Brown  and Collins et. el. expressed much disquiet with the conventional educational practice which has not sufficiently implemented activity and enculturation to learning. It is not a surprise that the current drop-outs rate from high school in North America is still remained high, e.g. 50% in Quebec Canada. Eleven years later, the emergence of the World Wide Web seems to give rise of "A new epistemology might hold the key to a dramatic improvement in learning and a completely new perspective on education." they wanted. (Brown & Collin et. El., 1989, pp. 42). Brown (200) proclaims that the Web is changing education, and the ways the youth today learn. The Web changes the epistemic landscape of learning. However, many educators are not optimistic towards the implementation of Web into the current educational system. The Web is not a magic wand for solving the existing problems. Similar to other educational technologies, it is a tool. It is the human efforts that make the tool effective. The purpose of the presentation will be to examine:
1. What kind of pedagogical approaches are suitable for teaching with the Web
2. What can the teachers do to use the Web for regular classroom teaching
3. What can the teachers do to enhance learning with the Web

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Luchs, Michele / Hynes, Myrna / Goodall, Jennifer
Writing Team, DFJG, Ministere de l'Education, Quebec / Teacher, Riverside School Board
Designing Digital Portfolios
The focus of this session will be a discussion about and presentation of a 20 minute video of Jennifer Goodall, an English and technology teacher from Quebec and her eighth-grade students which shows her class designing their own digital portfolios and burning them onto CD's.  The video will capture the teacher thinking and planning required for such an undertaking, as well as the reflections, decision-making processes, and final outcomes of her students, many of whom have special needs.  In addition, the video will demonstrate how media-based technology projects can enhance the best of contemporary literacy pedagogy.  Key elements of the current Quebec Curriculum Reform will be mapped onto this project in order to ground the new English Language Arts program in the reality of the "din and dirt" of the classroom. Since media literacy and the use of technology are unfamiliar territory for most secondary teachers, this video should provide encouragement and support for those attempting to include it in their teaching.

Jennifer Goodall is a secondary school English and technology teacher at Centennial Regional High School, Riverside School Board in Greenfield Park, Quebec.

Michele Luchs is a secondary school English and media literacy teacher who is currently on leave from the English Montreal School Board to work for the Quebec Ministry of Education on the Curriculum Reform as a member of the writing team for English Language Arts, secondary.

Myrna Hynes is a secondary school English and special education teacher who is currently on leave from Riverside School Board to work for the Quebec Ministry of Education on the Curriculum Reform as a member of the writing team for English Language Arts, secondary.

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McAuley, Alexander (OISE) / Tumblin, Elizabeth (Western School Board, PEI / Hawkins, Tyler  (Harry Camsell Elementary School, NWT)
Mentoring in a Knowledge-Building Community
One challenge for successful implementation of an educational change is ongoing professional support. A second challenge is providing that support on an as-needed basis.

This presentation will outline how these two challenges were addressed through telementoring relationships in the implementation of an online knowledge-building environment, Knowledge Forum®, in geographically isolated schools in the South Slave district of the Northwest Territories. A key feature of these relationships was their dual nature, consisting of professional pedagogical and content-area dimensions. The former enabled teachers new to the program to access direct support for pedagogical concerns and questions as they needed it. The latter enabled mentors to contribute their own subject-area expertise and knowledge-building experience through direct interactions with students. The result was a multilayered community of learners linking teachers, students, and local and remote telementors through the Knowledge Forum® interface.

The presentation will provide a short introduction to knowledge-building and Knowledge Forum®, three perspectives on how the telementoring model was developed and implemented, and and an overview its impact. It will be of interest to educators at all levels interested in how technology can be used to support developing educational practices.

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Munro, Sophia
Consultant, Distance Learning and Information Technologies, Manitoba Education and Training
The Interdisciplinary Middle Years Multimedia (IMYM) Project
The Interdisciplinary Middle Years Multimedia (IMYM) Project is a research and development project of Manitoba Education and Training.  It focusses on research on effective integration of ITC and models for teacher professional development.  The IMYM project is detailed at http://www.edu.gov.mb.ca/metks4/tech/currtech/imym/

The IMYM project integrates best practice in interdisciplinary teaching at the middle years level with the use of technology as a tool for learning core curriculum outcomes.  This session will outline the scope of the project and demonstrate an IMYM online interdisciplinary unit, the IMYM web links database, and the online IMYM Conversation Station.  Research results will be shared.

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Parsons, Kerry / Oldrieve, Peter
Information Centre Specialist / Teacher, Riverside Education Centre, Chignecto Central Regional School Board, Nova Scotia
Authentic Learning in a Technology Rich Public School
See how technology and curriculum can be integrated to produce a daily morning news show for a local community cable station.

Showcase of information and media technologies in a school environment.  Demonstration of use of presentation software ( avid/imovie, powerpoint/ hyperstudio) library/internet research skills and media technology in a student-produced daily news format show.

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Proctor, Dr. Len
Professor, Curriculum Studies, College of Education, University of Saskatchewan
A Constructivist Alternative to the Cognitive Based Models for Developing Interactive Multimedia Learning Resources
Instructional design theorists have  attempted to answer questions about the appropriateness of feedback by suggesting that different types of learning tasks require different strategies and instructional methods.  Current research paradigms are based on the belief that one of the main functions of feedback lies in correcting errors.  This point of view makes error analysis an important tool for gaining insight into the corrective process.  More sophisticated procedures that involve the analysis of common errors or error patterns could prove to be more useful than the traditional pattern of varying the quality, quantity and timing of feedback.  The problem is deciding on how the feedback algorithm should be designed and how it should be used in the error correction process.

Harrington (1997) took up the challenge and designed a project to investigate the usefulness of a situated learning model as a framework for the design of interactive multimedia.  The interactive multimedia program she used placed the emphasis on learning, not on instruction.  In doing so, it created an environment where students used higher-order thinking, in collaborative groups, to learn strategies of assessment in mathematics that were transferable to teaching practice.

Given these two very distinct theoretical perspectives,  what are the design implications for the use feedback in the development of interactive multimediaed instructional resources?

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Raju, Gonam Joe
CEO/Supervising Principal, Alberta Distance Learning Centre
The Alberta Distance Learning Centre
Distance learning in the K-12 sector has been offered since the 1920s in Alberta and other provinces. Over the years the programs offered and the delivery methods were customized to take advantage of the latest technologies.

The challenge for large distance education organizations (like the Alberta Distance Learning Centre with over 20,000 students) is to cater to the educational needs of all registered students, most of whom request print-based courses while growing numbers look to more interactive courses.

There are several issues relating to these divergent needs, including the development of appropriate learning resources, using the best technologies to meet the reality of students' environments, staff who are willing to adjust teaching strategies to meet changing needs, the evolving nature of current technologies.

This presentation will discuss these issues and will focus on how the Alberta Distance Learning Centre meets these challenges.

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Schmetzke, Axel
Librarian/Assistant Proessor, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point
Barriers to Barrier-Free Distance Education: Problems and Strategies for Change
With the advancement of digital information technology, distance education could potentially open up unprecedented opportunities for people with print disabilities. Unfortunately, few distance-education programs in North America have been designed with the idea of inclusiveness in mind. The very technology that holds the promise of increased independence for people with disabilities is not sufficiently taken advantage of to institute an accessible infrastructure for distributive learning. The barriers, which will be discussed in this presentation, range from ignorance at the policy level to inaccessible design of web sites, courseware and library resources. The presenter concludes by suggesting a three-pronged approach to change: advocacy for inclusive distance-education policies, insistence on accessible products when negotiating with information systems vendors, and consumer-oriented research that helps distance-education professionals to select truly accessible technology.
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Syme, Paul
Chair, Art Education, Horton High School, Annapolis Valley Regional School Board, Nova Scotia
Integrating Information Technology with Art Education
I would like to share the results of utilizing information technologies to fulfill the objectives of an art education and design program which is grounded in the principles of critical pedagogy.
Staying true to the principles of critical pedagogy, I have assembled a comprehensive website of educational resources for teachers and learners and compiled several online galleries of student work. This web project received a Grassroots grant  last spring, is featured at About.com,  and has been used by educators from around the world in a wide range of disciplines.

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Trites, Janet / Roy, Bev
Resource Teachers/START members Annapolis Valley Regional School Board, Nova Scotia
Special Needs Technology Resource Support Team (START)
START (Special Needs Technology Resource Support Team) is a program partnership between the Annapolis Valley Regional School Board and the Kings Rehabilitation Centre of the Department of Community Services. The START team is a group of educators who formulate and enact initiatives for the implementation of best practices in the educational application of assistive technology.  START is also an ongoing resource for assistive technology that provides professional development and support to the school based program planning process. The mission statement of this initiative is to enable the progress of students with disabilities and health challlenges through assistive technology services.  The START team brings together educators to develop strategies and implement best practices for assistive technology support.  The START team also has developed a procedure for cost effective software and hardware options.  We would like to show others our model of sharing resources for cash strapped schools and the community.  Our presentation will include how we have established resources, promoted the professional development of educators and established assistive technology as an integral part of the program planning process for students with special needs. In the true Maritime spirit, we have not had unlimited funding to do this.
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Webster, Peter
Head of Information Services, Patrick Power Library, Saint Mary's University
Better Online Research through Instructor/Library Cooperation
Assignments which require students to search online research databases and/or the World Wide Web are an essential part of teaching in many disiplines.   The learning experience of students completing such assignments can be greatly hindered if assignment expectations do not coinside with the materials available.  This session will look at how librarians can assist instructors in ensuring the research assignments work most effectively to meet their teaching goals, particularly when using remote databases and web-based research methods.   The session will examine several case studies where research assignment effectiveness and outcomes have been improved by library instructor cooperation.
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Welsford, Barbara / Whitten, Jane
Coordinator Assistive Technology Centre Society / Consultant
Literacy Skill Development through Multimedia for Youth at Risk
The Assistive Technology Centre Society has partnered with the South Shore Alternate School, Dayspring Youth Facility, Parkview Education Centre and the Queens Adult High School in Lunenburg and Queens County, (South Shore District School Board) Nova Scotia, to carry out a research project that enhances "Literacy Skill Development through Multimedia for Youth at Risk".   The intent is to prove that literacy skills of youth at risk improve while utilizing digital video technology to produce quality multimedia products which relate to curriculum outcomes.

The Assistive Technology Centre, under contract with HRDC has developed multimedia curriculum (including the use and application of digital still photography, digital video cameras, iMovie2, audio manipulation techniques, graphic organizer software, photo software wordprocessing software and so on) that focusses on the enhancement of literacy skills of learners at risk.

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Wozney, Lori / Abrami, Dr. Philip / Vendatesh, Vivek
Education Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance
Factors Affecting Teachers' Perceptions and Integration of Computer Technologies
The Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance has recently developed a questionnaire for research we are conducting on the wide range of personal and social factors that may affect teachers' perceptions and integration of computer technologies. Knowledge gained from the study will assist in the instructional design of training programs as well as indicating where additional services for teachers should be provided. At this point in the research we are preparing to distribute the questionnaire to approximately 1200 teachers in the province of Quebec.

The Technology Implementation Questionnaire (TIQ) explores three areas related to teacher integration of computer technologies in the classroom 1) teachers' perceived costs, expectations and values 2) teachers' process of adoption and pedagogical practices 3) competency, experience and training related to computer technologies.

This session will provide an overview of the study and as well, examine the study findings and future initiatives of the project.

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