Television is one of the most prevalent media influences in kids’ live – watching TV is a daily pastime for 75 percent of Canadian children, both boys and girls from Grade 3 to Grade 10. How much impact TV has on children depends on many factors: how much they watch, their age and personality, whether they watch alone or with adults, and whether their parents talk with them about what they see on TV.
SchoolPlus is a province-wide initiative led by the Saskatchewan Ministry of Education and the provincial education system that promotes learning success and well-being for every child and young person. It envisions a province where every school is actively improving student outcomes through the delivery of a strong learning program and serving as a centre for social, health and other services for children and their families.
If young people are to be equipped effectively to meet the challenges of the 21st century it is surely prudent to seek out the very best understandings from current scientific research into the nature of how humans learn before considering further reform of the current system.
This article by John Abbott and Terence Ryan appeared in the Spring, 1999 issue of Education Canada.
E-learning has made a remarkable transition over the past decade. In spite of a lack of definitive, empirical research, there is growing practical evidence that use of information and communication technology (ICT) can provide advantages to the learning process that are not readily available in other ways.
Note that a state of the field review on e-learning conducted by the Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance at Concordia University is also available.
(Source: Canadian Council on Learning )
This 2006 review develops an argument catalogue to encompass public, research, policy, and practitioner perspectives, assesses what is incomplete in the various literatures, explores what works (best practices), and provides a vision for promising new lines of research. The review focused on the role of e-learning in early childhood learning, elementary and secondary learning, post-secondary learning, adult learning, and health and learning.
(Source: _ Canadian Council on Learning_).
Conventional wisdom suggests that lack of oral English proficiency is the main impediment to successful literacy learning for young ESL students, but recent evidence suggests that this may not be true. Fortunately, research provides guidance about promoting the development of literacy in young children, even if they have limited oral language proficiency in English.
(Source: Canadian Council on Learning)
Read the article by clicking on the live link to the Canadian Education Association website, below.
Jane Gilbert, formerly a secondary teacher, is a chief researcher with the New Zealand Council for Educational Research.
This paper describes aspects of the current context of education policy in Canada, selected trends in the integration of information and communications technologies (ICT) for learning in the kindergarten to grade 12 education systems and offers observations about emerging visions of effective ICT integration. The ideas presented represent a synthesis of information reviewed in research reports, policy papers, selected seminars and surveys.
(Source: Canadian Education Association)
The reason kids are so attracted to these games, Prensky says, is that they are learning about important “future” things, from collaboration, to prudent risk taking, to strategy formulation and execution, to complex moral and ethical decisions. Prensky’s arguments are backed up by university PhD’s studying not just game violence, but games in their totality, as well as studies of gamers who have become successful corporate workers, entrepreneurs, leaders, doctors, lawyers, scientists and other professionals.
How do we equip today’s students with 21st century skills necessary for success? The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD) proposes a new whole child approach, supported by research, to provide the foundation for success in school, the workplace, the community, and life. ASCD also proposes a broader definition of achievement and accountability that promotes the development of children who are healthy, safe, engaged, supported, and challenged.
