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Tap into the Personal
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food at school
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Vending machines at school
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The stairs up to quarry rock
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Mask mandate
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Dance team for Seycove
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Online courses need to be revamped/updated
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Careers is a useless course
Debate
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use writing to start a boycott of a company
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Cultural appropriation(compensation)
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How do you compensate when it’s global communities?
Listing from lists
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school days should start later and end later
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Teens should be able to start learning to drive at 14
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The legal drinking age for beer and wine should be lowered to 16
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Should pets be allowed in school
Circle of Viewpoints
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students shouldn’t really be using online courses in the fi rst place
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Their second class education so they don’t need to be perfect
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The parts pointed out are knitpicky
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This is for specifi c courses, not all of them need to be revamped
I am thinking of online course revamp from the viewpoint of not all need to be looked at. I think
that the the teachers that use these courses to teach would notice these mistakes or have
students come to them especially for more academic courses and if that were true they would
have mentioned it before and so only really old ones that not many students use should be
looked at, if that. A question I have from this viewpoint is if these mistakes are being missed in
arguably the most used online courses then what will be waiting in the courses that are not
used as often?
I am thinking of online course revamp from the viewpoint of Students shouldn’t be using online
courses in the fi rst place. I think that online courses don’t give the same instructional value that
in person classes do and student can easily cheat when it comes to these online courses. If
they really do need a class they can make the time in their schedule to take it or take it during
the summer. A question I have for this viewpoint is, if students want to take more classes than
the school sceduale allows why shouldn’t we support them in wanting to further their
academics?
I am thinking of online course revamp from the viewpoint of the parts pointed out are knitpicky.
I think that such small errors within the course material shouldn’t dictate whether or not we
remake multiple courses all varying in their length and complexity. It is a waist of time for the
teachers that would have to spend their time looking through each course. A question I have
for this viewpoint is, if these courses are supposed to be as good as taking in person classes
then why are whole parts of the syllabus inaccessible to the students?
True for Who?!?
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not only are there mistakes but the level of work that the courses take to complete are either
extremely harder than they should be or much easier and can be cheated
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What are some other students opinions on online courses and what mistakes or problems
have they noticed?
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Narrow down courses to target
Identifying with Audience
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School board offi cers, stdents, teachers
Teachers are the ones who have to teach the material, students must be able to understand the
material, and the school board makes decisions surrounding how the courses are set up
I want to support the students and make sure they can understand what is being taught in the
courses
In the school board they are older administrative folk who most likely have not spent much time
actually teaching with online courses or learning from them. I am targeting the members of the
school board.
Thinking Inside the Box
Interview Questions
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How long have you been teaching online courses
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general opinions on online courses and careers
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As a teacher of these courses how often have you looked through the actual course material
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How much say do you have over the content of these courses
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Have you ever gotten any complaints about the courses from students/do you have any
complaints
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Do you know who makes these courses? Are they outsourced or do NVSD teachers make
them?
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Who would you go to if there was something that needed to be changed in one of these
courses and how would you go about it
Interview Reflection
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my main goal was to gather more information about how online courses operated from the
teacher’s side of things and who I could contact at NVOL to create change. Ms. Yeo was
very helpful in giving her perspective on the courses as well as all the issues she has found
with the way it is set up. I also got a couple of names and gained some info on how changed
can be made at the moment and what way to approach would make the most effective
argument
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I learned that there is no one that teachers can contact to update parts of courses. What
surprised me was that Ms.Yeo really does not agree with online courses
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How exactly the best way to contact the principle would be as well as specifi cs of what she
had to do to get Seycove off of the online course for careers
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Ms. Yeo was very passionate about the faults with the way the online courses are set up and
how much responsibility falls onto the teachers. Having questions that helped push the topic
in a certain direction also helped me gather a lot of information
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I wish I had asked more questions about what she had to do to push Seycove to a fully in
class careers course and the amount of convincing it took
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What I got from this interview helped me fi gure out how exactly I should structure the way I
present my argument with a main idea and the evidence I collected as example as to why
there needs to be change. Some new questions I have are how many drafts are we going to
be making and what is the timeline to sending these off?
Brainstorming
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connect the poor quality of the courses to the way they are both created and maintained, the
parts feel disconnected from each other
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Don’t accuse them and make them defensive
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Add about an IT person/teacher that should be added as part of the staff
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Focus on the technical issues but add about the concerning media that is being used in the
course
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Problems with the course should just be examples of why this isn’t working
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Reference testimonials from both Ms. Yeo and students of how this effects their ability to
learn the course materials
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The main goal should be to get them to hire a teacher/ pay for a group of teachers to go
through and do these courses each year to check over the work and to fi nd any flaws in the
way it is being taught
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The FAQ that these courses are the same level as regular courses in school is a lie, you need
to take steps to make that the truth, here’s how…
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A reason for paying the teachers who come in to create these courses for over time is that it
is crazy that you expect the teachers who teach this course to have double the students in
their class with only a block dedicated to them and the course to spend the time to review
and improve these courses for students. By the way it’s set up it’s no wonder they’re as
broken and iffy as they are
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Start with that I am a student that has taken careers online and that these are things that I
found while I was taking the course
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Mention the importance of current courses and the fact that they should be updated every
year-like how teachers in regular school will update the way they teach as they observe their
students and how they learn as well as new facts and changes to how things are viewed to
keep the learning fresh and help the students be as successful as possible
Thesis
NVOL courses need to be reviewed and actually gone through in their entirety by teachers
each year to update and improve the courses to create a strong and effective learning
environment for students
Voice activity
Think about the children
Outline/Draft
Dear Mr.King,
My name is Grace Leishman and I am currently a Grade 11 student at Seycove Secondary
School. Last year, when I was in Grade 10, I took Career Life Education 10 as a NVOL course,
completing the course and ending up with an A in the class. However, while working through
the course I found many mistakes and technical errors that should not be in a online course
that entire school populations use to be able to graduate. I am writing to you today to not only
bring these errors to your attention but to also push for something to be implemented so that
these courses can stay up-to-date so students can get the most out of all courses in NVOL
school.
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explain how technical errors made some parts of the course unusable
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Go into talking with Ms.Yeo (maybe don’t mention name, depends) explain how teachers
don’t have enough time to go in a fi x stuff every year
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Move into general updating of courses and how that would be benefi cial to both students
and teachers
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End with suggestion for teachers to update course every year
Draft 1
Students rely on teachers to create a strong and effective learning environment so that they
can learn both the skills and content to succeed, why should it be any different for the students
taking it online? On the website for NVOL it states that online courses are “equivalent to face-
to-face learning”, how can that be true when the teachers teaching the courses have no max to
how many can take their course at a time as well as there being no evolution of the course
made by the teachers.
Dear Mr.King and Ms.Tiche,
My name is Grace Leishman. I am a grade 11 student at Seycove Secondary and last year I
took Career Life Education 10 online as part of NVOL. I am emailing you to both bring some
issues with the CLE 10 course to your attention as well as some underlying issues with how
online courses work for the teachers teaching the materials. Online learning could be an
extremely powerful tool for students to improve their learning but at the moment that isn’t
possible. I hope to help change that.
Originally when I was taking CLE 10, I started to notice a trend of broken links and outdated
information within the course. On more than one occasion the learning materials given to the
students were outdated and did not reflect the current year. One example of this would be the
Infograph used to explain Canada’s food guide had not been updated to the new
recommendations. Therefore teaching students outdated health information. Another example
is the fact that the Grad planner was still from 2017/18, it had not been updated for three years.
However, outdated materials were not the only issue I found in the course. As for the broken
links, many of them were quick fi xes, only requiring someone to go in and switch the old link
out with the new one. In fact, there were so many easy fi xes like that that I had to wonder if
there was something that was stopping someone from just going in and fi xing them. As it turns
out, I was right.
I recently talked with the teacher who ran the CLE 10 course I took to ask about these online
courses from a teacher’s perspective. As it turns out, there is no designated IT person working
for NVOL to fi x any issues with the courses. This means that all of the responsibilities fall onto
the teachers who only have one block dedicated to specifi c classes that are often taken up by
helping students in the course or marking work, especially since there is no class limit for
online classes. I fi nd this to be unacceptable. When has there ever been any sort of online
service that doesn’t have
at least
one person constantly reviewing and updating content so
users have the best possible experience? This is even worse when you look at the implications
and realize that many courses may not have been updated since the day they were created.
Not to reiterate points, but NVOL has the foundations to be a great resource for learning but it’s
really the technical issues and strain on teachers that is holding it back. My suggestion would
be to hire a few teachers at the start of each year that can take the time to go through each
course, working through the materials, so to fi nd any technical issues as well as possible
issues with entire activities. This would allow for the teachers teaching the course to actually
focus on the students and would guarantee that each course is learning ready for the new
school year.
I hope that after reading this you will be willing to take the steps necessary to create a strong
and effective NVOL learning environment that will allow students to succeed.
Thank you for your time,
Grace Leishman
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what is the most important thing I want to say about my subject? How am I saying it in a way
that won’t be forgotten?
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Have I balanced attention to each point? Each point flows through each other
Change wording for the hiring teachers thing and work on
