Results and benefits

Our main result in the short time of this project is that 14 students are now able to take a class that otherwise would not have been available to them. In the start-up process of this project we have tackled organisational barriers. The two distance teachers (Bob Pruiksma, Bogerman and Jos Muskens, Broklede) have become a team in the design of the educational programme.
The students also cross barriers. The groups are situated in different provinces in the country and have different mother tongues (many students at Bogerman have the minority language Frisian as a mother tongue and speak Dutch as a second language. The school-curriculum is offered to them in Dutch, but in group work students and teachers often speak Frisian. The students of Broklede have Dutch as their mother tongue and as instructional language). The schools differ in culture and attitudes towards learning. By working together on Maths, the students discard preoccupied beliefs of the ways and attitudes of the people in the other district. We hope that these students will use this experience to work in similar ways in international projects later on in their careers.

We need to make one note. At the start of the school year the students of Broklede came to Bogerman to spend an afternoon with the students of Bogerman. During this afternoon we had two videoconference sets and digital boards in two adjacent classrooms. We spent about an hour practicing communicating with each other through videoconference and digital board. The technical staff of both schools was present and assisted with the technique. The teachers took the students of their own classes (with students from both schools) and spent time getting to learn the names of all students. Afterwards, all students, teachers and technical staff spent two hours ‘Fierljeppen’, a Frisian sport to jump ditches. Great fun and a good way to get to know each other a little bit better. The result of this effort was that teachers and students could address each other by name right from the start of the distance lessons. The teachers and the students had overcome their fear of using the technical equipment during the first afternoon. Thus, from the very beginning, the distance lessons were effective and no time was lost with technical matters. During the schoolyear at least one more afternoon will be organised so students can meet each other and work together face to face.

The help of technical staff is necessary during the distance lessons. The technical staff sets up equipment and does a technical check about a quarter of an hour before each distance lesson. Distance education in this way takes a high initial investment. Once all the technique is in place (and working!) it reduces teacher costs. One teacher can teach two small groups at the same time instead of two teachers working with these small groups separately. Plans for next year are to add one more group of students from a third school, making the course even more cost effective.
We expect a limit to the number of students a teacher can handle in real time distance education. A real time distance class at secondary education works well with a maximum of twenty students scattered at a maximum of four geographically different places.

Pedagogical innovation

A curriculum designed for regular education is adapted to distance and blended forms of learning. The students learn to use advanced technology to achieve their learning goals.