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| | PRINT | | E-lev – An Adult Education Success |
 Oslo, May 2006 – (by Torhild Slått of The Norwegian Association for Distance and Flexible Education) During the last few years, an extensive and interesting piece of development work has been carried out at a Norwegian secondary high school – Kvadraturen school centre in Kristiansand. The result we see today is a net-based or distance-learning-based teaching system for the students, mostly adults, but also some young pupils. The product is called "e-lev" or "e-pupil" in English.
"elev" is the Norwegian word for pupil, and in this case, the "e" also refers to electronic systems. The story behind e-lev is a fresh piece of distance learning history, almost a multimedia fable. It all began with the government starting an adult education priority programme whose ultimate aim was to provide better possibilities for getting a job and to achieve a higher level of competence in the labour market. The name of the programme is "Kompetansereformen" - the Competence Reform.
When the county of Vest-Agder had to start their education programme for adults who, according to the new law, now had the right to an upper-secondary education, they suggested that the Kvadraturen school centre should work on building a net-based educational programme for adults. Those of the staff chosen to work with it were all teachers with long experience.
The education and training itself is more important than technology
The teachers have gone backwards and forwards between the classroom and the project room for the e-lev development programme. They have worked together to develop modules in Norwegian, natural science, social studies, mathematics, English, and history. They have taken the sum of their teaching experience with them to the machine and made improvements in the process.
They have used everything possible in information and communication technology, while at the same time keeping in mind that it is the educational aspect that is the most important, i.e. explanations, illustrations, and challenging tasks for the pupils.
Technology allows endless possibilities for colours and "hop, skip and jump" acrobatics on the screen, but teachers have resisted using fancy Flash presentations or sound effects when they are at the cost of the possibility of disturbing pupils’ motivation for learning. Reaction to pupil response has led to both revision and further development of the programme.
Birgit Johannessen demonstrates how you can work with mathematics on e-lev. You can almost feel your fingers itching to try it. Angles and curves appear in a wink. The teachers find that these things are even easier to explain with the help of technology than they were with chalk on the blackboard.
An example is the speed with which you can see the curve changing when values are changed, and pupils can experiment by doing this. In some cases they have chosen to film the teacher’s explanation on the blackboard. Step by step you can see the angles constructed, and, of course, the explanation can be repeated again and again until you are quite certain it is fully understood.
From video to Internet
 The developers started by using video, filming the teachers’ explanations and other relevant presentations that illustrated the material to be learnt. However, the Internet offered far more possibilities for showing illustrations, animations, and variety in the presentation of pictures and drawings, text and sound, and most important of all, the possibility of being interactive, i.e., pupil/teacher communication and multiple choice assignments.
Net-based teaching opens up teaching methods not possible with either video or radio cassettes. They do, in fact, still use video says project leader Eva Merete Hornes, but only for filming specific sequences that are subsequently inserted into the material in the data programme.
Differentiation resource
E-lev is now also used with ordinary school-age pupils and for other school subjects. A module for motor vehicle mechanics has also been produced. Among other things it includes identifying different types of tyres, animation of tyre positioning, and brief video glimpses from car workshops. The presentations are so explicit and clearly presented that even a person with no knowledge about cars is able to understand and get the point.
A complete VK1-laboratory subject programme (VK1 = upper secondary first special-subject year, usually year 2) is also produced, and through this work it has become possible for the school to position pupils as apprentices at places of work. The teachers at the Kvadraturen school centre produce the database contents and instruct pupils in close co-operation with the local trade and industry workplaces.
We also use e-lev in ordinary classes, either in groups or for individual pupils. "This is a flexible method that works well", says Eva Merete Hornes. "Our experience is that e-lev groups work better than the ordinary groups. It gives extra motivation for working and thus better results."
The use of self-made resources
E-lev teachers produce a lot of their own materials due to ongoing budgetary constraints: no ordering fancy and expensive animations or complicated sound effects. A lot of the material does include sound, so the pupils can choose themselves whether they will read from the screen or listen to the teacher read the text. The teachers use either their own voice or that of a colleague, and they have their own illustrator among them.
They do, though, have a few more advanced animations. These have come to them indirectly, so to speak. One of the teachers, Yngvar Ellingsen, has been taking postgraduate education and made an impressive interactive animation of soundwave features. This is now to be found in the e-lev natural science programme.
There are other interactive animations in the various subject programmes developed in co-operation with the Agder Technical College, both students and staff. This was made possible via funding from Sørlandet Competance Fund and Høykom.
Interactive dialect geography
In the school subject Norwegian language, pupils learn about dialects from different parts of the country. The Norwegian language still varies quite a lot in different parts of the country, and this, too, is something pupils must learn. We have not needed to travel northeast or south in the country to record dialects. All dialect examples in e-lev are from staff working at the school.
When pupils are learning to differentiate between the various dialects, they play back a short text, and then click on the map of Norway at the point where they believe that dialect comes from. They can also continue into even more specifically localized dialect detail to find the exact place where people speak that particular dialect.
E-lev "exported" to other parts of the country
E-lev is used in the county of Vest-Agder for all adults taking upper secondary level exams. There are four resource centres in the county that provide teachers for these pupils, while Kvadraturen works with updating and new production of material in e-elev. E-lev offers, and has carried out, several courses for instructors who wish to use the platform. E-elev is now also exported to other parts of the country - Akershus, Oslo, Nord-Trøndelag, and Rogaland.
The future e-lev?
At the moment, the project leader and teachers at the Kvadraturen school centre do not know what will happen with regard to e-lev in the future. They have a strong belief in the programme and very much want to continue. This is also a saleable commercial project that they believe could sell well.
It has been developed with official money, and work is going on to find economic resources to ensure the continuation, or maybe eventually find practical solutions for establishing an independent project, either alone or in co-operation with an existing business firm. |
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