The Value of using VLE in schools

VLEs offer opportunities for new types of communication and administration and new approaches to learning. Jewitt et al.(2010) saw these opportunities as leading to 12 types of outcomes which they found evidence for:

1. Improved organisation of information and communication across the school (make a range of information quickly and easily accessible, including aggregating data and reporting to all staff, sharing school news as well as informing teachers, governors, learners and parents of rapidly changing events).

2. Increasing parental involvement and supporting learning at home. 3. Increased opportunities for independent and personalised learning.

4. Enhancing the accessibility, quality, relevance and range of learning resources. 5. Improved processes of monitoring and assessment for learning and teaching. 6. Increased opportunities for collaborative learning and interaction.

20 8. Making best use of teachers’ time.

9. Facilitating effective and strategic leadership and management of teaching. 10. Supporting additional educational needs and inclusion.

11. Improved management of student behaviour and attendance.

12. Building the school identity and community (Jewitt et al., 2010, p.6-7).

A focus here is the idea of innovation. Jewitt and many other researchers such as Nguyen (2015) saw VLEs as leading to new forms of collaboration among learners, helping the development of learning communities and promoting creativity, enjoyment and motivation. For example, the collaboration to design and distribute an online school ‘newspaper’ where spaces for the text are provided, opportunities for communication and receiving feedback through online voting. A second focus is that VLEs enable opportunities that were not feasible before, for example, pedagogy such as blended learning(Nguyen, 2015) and flipped classroom (Elmaadaway, 2018). Elmaadaway (2018)investigatedwhether the use of a flipped classroom approach with an e-learning system (Blackboard course) at a Saudi

universitypromoted learners’ perceptions toward levels of engagement and skill

performance. In his study, he found that such integration helped learners acquire different

skills.Both blended learning and flipped classroom are based on the idea that students

could access resources outside of the physical classroom; e.g., videoconferencing which facilitated the work between learners and an artist as part of a virtual residency. In a similar vein, Younie & Leask (2010) spotlighted activities such as learner podcasting; video

conferencing; blogging; and online testing which had been undertaken in schools that used learning platforms. Mclaughilm et al. (2014) & Gilboy et al. (2015)placed a series of video lectures online for a pharmacy course and found that learners preferred using this approach rather than traditional lectures, where it helped them in achieving the principles of active learning. In other words, class time was advocated for questions and presentations.

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Learning in schools is typically face-to-face but the VLE can be used in a blended approach. Osguthorpe & Graham (2003) defined blended learning as combining face-to face teaching with distance delivery systems “… but it’s more than showing a page from a website on the classroom screen…those who use blended learning environments are trying to maximize the benefits of both face-to-face and online methods.” (p. 227). This calls for a deeper level of pedagogical understanding than simply uploading Power Points.

Some of the opportunities cited by Jewitt et al(2010) concern efficiency and the saving of time.For example, providing easier access to learning resources and tracking of learners’ work as well as access to an up-to-date management system. Others are about increasing engagement between parents and their children and helping schools involve parents more in the life of the school and enabling to answer parental enquiries more quickly. For example, ‘an online parents' evening.

There is a challenge in the take up of all of the technology which we will look at in the following chapters, but there are some issues which appear more relevant to VLEs. One of these issues seems to be the sustaining of initiatives. Some educational systems, including in the UK and Saudi Arabia, promote VLEs but then drop initiatives as government changes. A second difficulty is about generalizing practice. For example, Becta focused on initiative practice in a selected number of schools. This report gives little indication as how far these initiatives had been generalized. It seems also that a common picture is that only some of the functions of VLE are used and opportunities for innovation are missed. Third, automatic assessments and quizzes offers opportunities, but this type of assessment has rarely been recognized as valuable in the past. Hammond (2010) pointed out, addressing challenges such as validity of testing, investment of time in test design, avoiding useless attention on drill and practice and creating material require a great deal of time and

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expense. Fourthly, VLEs are not seen to be as attractive as other web resources and this may lead to some resistance to using them. Finally, efficiency gains need to be viewed critically; even in the most optimistic reporting where VLEs are often seen as saving time, there is a sense of work expanding and this being time-consuming for administrators, teachers and for leaders. For example, if a school wants to engage parents more fully, there will be an expansion of their workload. If a school wants to promote discussion forums, this can eat into teachers’ free time and can generate serious issues of moderation and monitoring. The schools participating in Boulton & Waters’s study (2015), for instance, had concerns about the burden placed on their teachers while using VLEs, where teachers had needed extra time for more training and using ICT.

Ferdig et al. (2009) found that within an online environment the teachers' roles should be expanded and modified. Davis et al. (2007) and Ferdig et al. (2009) identified different roles teachers undertake in a virtual school environment. According to Ferdig et al.(2009), teachers are not only responsible for teaching and interacting with the learners within the online contexts but also should be: a course facilitator providing support for the learners; an instructional designer who creates material online with effective learning strategies; a local key contact to support learners accessing virtual courses; a mentor who offers tutoring; a technology coordinator who provides technical support for both their

colleagues and learners; and an administrator. We can imagine that if teachers in a virtual school have a huge responsibility then blending face-to-face teaching with online learning would make teachers’ roles much more complex.