professional learning through action research or reflection
Placing a Lens on One Aspect of My Professional Practice
The early goal I set for myself was to continue to build on and inform online learning strategies and develop competencies related to WeChat as an online support/learning platform. I wanted to increase my knowledge related to WeChat and develop a proposal to suggest how we might deliver segments of our EAP course material in China using WeChat.
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This is an important goal because the college is seeking to raise their profile in the Chinese market and given the prevalent use of WeChat in China, I believe there is value in assessing this popular app as an online learning medium.
FROM Blackboard to WE?
Currently at the college, Blackboard is employed as our primary learning management system and is widely used in house and for most online learning. Blackboard serves as the conduit between faculty and their students. It is a comprehensive system and offers a wide variety of tools to engage learners.
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Faculty use this platform to post course related material (syllabi, weekly coursework, assignments), communicate with students using the announcements feature and also email protocol that is tied directly to student email and also keep students appraised of their scores (assignment/test results). Blackboard also has testing capabilities and faculty have the ability to create and deliver online assessment. It is a very comprehensive tool and works well for online learning in most markets.
We have a Panamanian cohort currently progressing through modules of our online English language program in the Blackboard environment and their feedback has been very positive. This is a pilot of our new online curriculum and the students involved are taking additional training in English, having completed six months intensive EAP study (in Canada). The program is divided into two cohorts. We have a Low Intermediate group and a High Intermediate group. The learning context is similar, however the coursework and assignments differ in terms of difficulty. Learners in the Low Intermediate group are in the range of a 5.0 IELTS and learners in the High Intermediate group are in the range of 5.5 IELTS.
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It was (and still is for the most part) our intention to continue to offer these online modules via Blackboard. However, a request from a partner school in China prompted a search for alternative delivery because Blackboard is not accessible to students from this particular region. As such, I began to consider how we could tap into online learning with our partner schools in China.
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The advent of using WeChat began as a cursory conversation with our Regional Manager for China and she stressed how widespread the use of WeChat was in all parts of China. Having just returned from there, I can certainly attest to the significance of WeChat in China. People pay using WeChat, they communicate using WeChat and they book everything from hotels to flights, to Uber using WeChat. It is quite a phenomenon. Until I saw this first hand, I could not conceive of how vital WeChat was to the day-to-day lives of people. Thus began my research to see if WeChat might be a viable platform for our learning material. Using WeChat seemed a logical fit, as millions of students already have access to the platform and are well practiced in its use.
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Although much of my discussion above is centered on learning in China, seeking out WeChat as a learning platform has other benefits as well, many of which I listed in in my earlier professional development plan. It affords us yet another flexible learning option when working with students in the classroom. It is an opportunity to bring technology into the classroom and doesn’t require students to be sitting at a computer. Any added technology, especially one that students are already familiar with, will help to engage the students in a positive way.
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