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Province funding school video-conferencing
by Dustin Walker
Wednesday February 23, 2005 Jasper Booster — The
province is pumping $6 million into further developing a new technology
that has already become mainstream at the Jasper Jr./Sr. High School.
Each school jurisdiction in the province will pocket $60, 000 to fund
video-conferencing equipment, training or related professional
development. The Grande Yellowhead Regional Division will use their
share to fund a plan to implement the technology in all elementary
schools in the district, including in Jasper. Such a project won’t be
able to go ahead until the province installs the Super Net, which will
enable more schools to use the video-conferencing system.
“For small, rural and remote schools, this technology will increase
their ability to expand learning opportunities and program choices,
such as second language learning or teacher professional development,”
said Alberta Education Minister Gene Zwozdesky, in a press release.
At the local high school, students have used the technology to study
Japanese 10 from a Hinton-based teacher, French 30/31 from Edson, and
Math 31 from Grande Cache. Also, a number of ‘options’ courses,
including tourism, community health, hotel management and medical
technologies, have been taught via video-conferencing.
Small High Schools like Jasper often don’t have the number of students
interested in certain classes to justify hiring another teacher.
With the provinces’ plan to make studying a second language mandatory
from grades four to nine, this technology will also give students more
options in exactly what language they want to learn.
“For example, if you were already offering French, and you wanted to
offer Japanese, you would have to offer Japanese from grade four to
grade 12, which means you’d have to hire another teacher, which a small
school would find difficult,” said Grande Yellowhead Regional Division
spokesperson Nicole Merrifield. “They’re receiving the same quality of
education without the cost to the schools.”
While Jasper Jr./Sr. High School Principal Dale Karpluk doesn’t agree
the quality of instruction is the same as having a regular teacher, she
does see the value of the video-conferencing system.
“Technology will never replace a classroom teacher. First, bar none, a
teacher in front of kids is my first choice and the best way for
students to learn,” said Karpluk. “The reality of our world is that is
not always a possibility, so we have to take the next option.”
Using video-conferencing is far better than the other alternative of correspondence, added Karpluk.
Plus, because of the size of the school division, the local principal
points out that the technology also saves on travel time for various
administrative meetings and professional development for educators.
Karpluk said that students have to be enthusiastic about the course
material to get the most out of a video-conferencing class. But that
hasn’t been much of a problem for the high school, since courses taught
using the technology are not mandatory to graduate, and are often
chosen by the students because they find the material interesting in
the first place.
“In a small high school, you’re always looking for ways to have more choices for the kids.”
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http://www.jasperbooster.com/story.php?id=144954
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