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Administrator
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The administrator supports the trainer and prepares
the system for the trainer's needs.
The administrator's job is twofold:
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authorize use of the system and manage access, |
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prepare the structure and parameters of new courses
in order to relieve the trainers of this burden.
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Administrators must have some real understanding of how the
system works and how any of the elements may be modified (new
elements created, existing ones changed or eliminated) to
supply trainers with an optimized framework for any particular
course. Trainers can thus decide what they want in their course
structure. The administrator will prepare it and make it available.
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Assignment
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Assignments are part of the personal communication
process.
ClassLeader is structured to allow trainers to communicate
with each learner in association with each lesson
or phase of work. The message given to the learner can be
a personal assignment, a reply to a question or feedback
on work submitted by the learner. An assignment would be a
task or mini-project the trainer asks a particular learner
to do. By giving different but complementary assignments to
the various individuals in a group, the trainer can both take
into account special talents, knowledge or lacunae and build
complex group projects
that require mutual contribution.
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Communication
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Communication is at the heart of the logic of ClassLeader
ClassLeader is based on two principles: organizing,
storing and making accessible essential information for
the learning process, and facilitating communication between
the trainer and the learner. The quality of communication
is the measure of the quality of good pedagogy. ClassLeader
not only makes communication possible but considers it to
be the basis of learning.
Communication can be collective or individual. Collective
communication is represented by several functions:
Individual
communication takes place within each lesson
or work phase. There is a special page where learners and
trainers communicate directly. This page gives access to the
history of all previous communication. This is where the trainer
can give assignments
or react to work submitted by the learner.
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Constructivism
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Constructivism is a pedagogic approach particularly
well adapted to the organization and philosophy of ClassLeader.
ClassLeader can be used for a wide variety of pedagogic
purposes, strategies and themes. Some users have even harnessed
its structuring and communicative power to use it as a framework
for conducting projects unrelated to learning. As a pedagogic
tool, ClassLeader is particularly well adapted to constructivist
pedagogic approaches.
Constructivism is both a theory of human cognition, including
how it is shaped and modeled, and a pedagogic method based
on the principles of constructivist cognition. Because constructivism
sees learning as a complex process involving perception, holistic
patterning, and continual active adaptation by the learner
to rich information fields, its basic pedagogic tenets are:
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the
autonomy of the learner in interaction with other agents
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the
access to higher planes of operational performance through
open but purposeful exploration of the targeted area
of knowledge and competence. |
Constructivism
aims at building the foundations in experience of productive
knowledge and mastery of the associated skills.The pedagogic
approach therefore insists on constructing an integrated
system of knowledge and operational competence rather than
simply instilling information which constructivists consider
to be only the discourse of knowledge (and not knowledge
itself).
ClassLeader lends itself to this approach in that the
trainer defines a structure of themes for his or her course,
fixes both collective and individual objectives involving
pragmatic work (research, collective or individual brainstorming,
report writing, project development, etc.) and uses the communication
system and the Electronic
Classroom to make sure that
the key events - conducted by the learners - take place and
become productive.
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Control
Panel
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The Control Panel is the starting point for the learner's
work in a course. It gives access to the essential functions.
Most of the basic functions are available from the Control
Panel which is accessed as soon as the learner or trainer
selects a course.
A range of buttons at the top of the page represent all
the essential functions for the learner, such as Personal
Dictionary>,
Electronic
Classroom
and Forum.
Access to the class list and the learner's progress is also
included. The trainer also has access to the lesson
creation function and learner enrollment.
The list of lessons
that make up the course contents give access to the specific
work phases. Only the lesson-specific communication
, test
or exercise and multimedia
functions are not accessible from the general Control Panel
since they are associated with specific lessons.
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Course
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The platform for study and communication is the course.
The course is the basic organizational unit of ClassLeader.A
course is essentially two things: a list of lessons
(or phases of work defined by the trainer) and a list of learners.
Once the trainer has defined these two parameters and filled
in the forms establishing these two lists of information,
a course can be said to exist operationally.
In practice a course is much more than that... of course!
What happens in a course is up to the trainer to decide. A
living course will be a series of events that will be programmed
beforehand (the course structure), announced in the course
of events (announcements), and planned, executed and analyzed
by means of the variety of communication
at the trainer's disposal, including the Electronic
Classroom
that brings everyone enrolled in the course together at specific
times..
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Electronic
Classroom
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The Electronic Classroom is the regular (or irregular)
occasion for meeting and adjusting communication for the entire
group.
The Electronic Classroom is a function automatically associated
with every course. It makes it possible to bring all the learners
together with the trainer in order to develop new themes,
consolidate old ones, clarify methodology, refocus course
and project
work and exchange points of view. Whenever the trainer invites
the learners of a course to a session of the Electronic Classroom
they will have the opportunity to exchange information in
a dialogue controled by the trainer. All documents the trainer
wishes to associate with the course can be identified as Slides
which will be available, in the same way as assignments
and Links.
Electronic Classroom sessions are typically led by the trainer,
but they the trainer can appoint leaders for group sessions
without the trainer, and especially for sub-group sessions.
The tool can thus be used to further learner project work
and research.
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E-mail
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Standard e-mail built into the system completes the
communication potential.
ClassLeader contains a sophisticated communication
system within the course and lesson structure, complemented
by the Electronic
Classroom.
To complete its efficacy it integrates a standard e-mail feature.
All members of a course, trainers and learners alike, are
invited to communicate their personal e-mail to facilitate
communication
in all directions. The trainer has the ability to e-mail messages
to the full group in one go. This can be useful particularly
for those who do not regularly log on to ClassLeader
as a means of reminding them of important events, dates or
deadlines.
The e-mail facility is a simple device that identifies the
resident e-mail software on the user's machine and uses it
to open a new message automatically addressed to the person
selected.
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Enrollment
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Enrollment can be initiated at 3 levels: administrator,
trainer, learner.
To participate in a course a learner must be enrolled. This
process must be recognized and approved both by the trainer
and the administrator. If the trainer accepts the learner's
enrollment, the name of the learner will appear in the class
lists and the usual lines of communication will be opened
(for trainer feedback,
the Electronic
Classroom,
the Forum,
etc.).
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Feedback
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With ClassLeader, Learners are the active agents in
the learning process. The trainer provides feedback.
ClassLeader is built on the pedagogic notion that the
learner will be active executing the work indicated or assigned
by the trainer. By giving objectives (tasks and deadlines)
the trainer can program over a period of time phases of intensive
individual or group work. The communication system built into
the course and lesson structure of ClassLeader makes
it possible to offer direct feedback to learners concerning
the work they have done. The term feedback when used in the
ClassLeader system refers to communication from the
trainer to the learner.
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Forum
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The forum is a free platform for exchange of information
between members of a course.
Every course contains its own forum. The forum allows learners
to post messages on particular themes or threads that
may already exist or that they can create at any time. Within
this structure of the forum many different themes can therefore
be treated or debated separately by all members of the group.
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Group
work
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ClassLeader facilitates the organization of group
work.
The course structure of ClassLeader implies the existence
of a group. Often in online learning, as in traditional learning,
groups are treated simply as collections of individuals following
the same instruction. ClassLeader provides the trainer
with the means to develop and exploit the resources - the
knowledge, talent, creativity
and productivity - of the group. The trainer can encourage
learners to work together, in pairs or any other convenient
number of persons working in a sub-group. Contact is easily
established among learners through the availability from within
the course of personal e-mail addresses. But learners can
also develop debates and share research through the forum.
The trainer can delegate to any of the learners at any given
time the right to host sessions of the Electronic
Classroom,
which means the learners can meet at mutally agreed times
to exchange information directly.
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Individual
Work
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ClassLeader has provided a panoply of tools to encourage
high quality invidual work within a complex learning
context.
ClassLeader is designed to encourage learning
by getting the learner to invest in the learning experience
and to make it work. It is therefore diametrically opposed
to the traditional teaching attitude: "As your teacher,
I'm going to provide you with all the information you need,
and we'll see at the end how good each one of you has been
at learning it". ClassLeader aims first of all at helping
learners manage their own learning process.
As in traditional training, individuals will be expected to
follow the course structure and all group activities programmed
or announced by the trainer. Nevertheless, at each stage of
work, they will also be in personal contact with the trainer,
who can propose particular assignments
to individuals. Much of the work in a course is the result
of personal research and consultation of resources.
But learners are never left on their own: they are involved
in a permanent dialogue with the trainer. According to one's
style of teaching, this may be limited to giving formal assignments
and correcting exercises
and tests. Or it may be the realization of a complex
project requiring phases of intensive individual work punctuated
by actions of concertation with other members of a group.
ClassLeader makes it possible to economize the trainer's
time and both optimize learner's time and deepen the learning
experience. The key is to develop the appropriate kind of
pedagogic
management.
Finally, ClassLeader recognizes that in some environments
learners may have the ability to publish their own work in
the form of Web pages or may wish to reference Web pages that
have been helpful in their work. The linking facilities built
into the communication system make it possible for them either
to indicate pages on their own Web site or to refer to Web
pages they have found which are in some way pertinent to their
work.
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