Elluminate: A bright idea
Diane Finley, Minister of
Human Resources and Skills
Development, visited Fanshawe in
late August to hear about the elearning
initiative that is setting
Fanshawe students' minds alight.
“Elluminate,” a real-time online learning product, was licensed and integrated with FanshaweOnline to create FANLive. FANLive, accessed from the FanshaweOnline website, features a chatroom, live voice chats and a video component to bring the classroom to students, wherever they are. Lessons are also recorded on the site, which students can use to watch at a later time or for review purposes.
“The FanshaweOnline product, which we introduced in 2004, has been extremely popular with students and is a very successful tool, but it's not a real-time, or synchronous, product — it's an asynchronous product,” explained Bob Beatty, chief information officer for the college. “(Elluminate) compliments the asynchronous product so (students and teachers) can do real-time together online, and you can do the store-and-forward stuff that we're more accustomed to as course extensions.”
Sue Deakin, coordinator of business administration accounting at the Lawrence Kinlin School of Business, said her students love the nature of FANLive. “If somebody's sick, they can attend class from home. When the bus strike was on, it was beneficial. Some have children, if their children are sick, they can stay home.” She uses FANLive for all of her classes, “(The students) use it for review purposes. The international students find it very useful because sometimes I talk too fast. They can listen to it again.”
Another goal for this e-learning initiative is to “fill in the gaps” in immigrants' existing college or university education to help them achieve the credentials to work in Canada.
The meeting's guest of honour, Diane Finley, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development, seemed impressed by what she saw.
“We had four or five students online with us today for the demonstration so that we could see how they would interact,” she said. “We participated in many ways as another student. We had the experience; we had other students live out there. It was not just virtual reality; it was reality.”
“As the Minister who is working on foreign credentials recognition, I welcome this progress,” said Finley. “It creates tremendous opportunity for people who are professionals who want to come to Canada and have those credentials recognized here so that they can work with the skills and talents for which they have been trained.” A 2008 study that found the unemployment rate for recently landed immigrants with a university degree was 10.7 per cent, compared to 2.4 per cent for Canadianborn workers who are university educated.
“I congratulate Fanshawe on their imagination and their initiative in developing this Elluminate product and the way they're rolling it out through the school. I think it has tremendous potential for the future,” said Finley.
“Elluminate,” a real-time online learning product, was licensed and integrated with FanshaweOnline to create FANLive. FANLive, accessed from the FanshaweOnline website, features a chatroom, live voice chats and a video component to bring the classroom to students, wherever they are. Lessons are also recorded on the site, which students can use to watch at a later time or for review purposes.
“The FanshaweOnline product, which we introduced in 2004, has been extremely popular with students and is a very successful tool, but it's not a real-time, or synchronous, product — it's an asynchronous product,” explained Bob Beatty, chief information officer for the college. “(Elluminate) compliments the asynchronous product so (students and teachers) can do real-time together online, and you can do the store-and-forward stuff that we're more accustomed to as course extensions.”
Sue Deakin, coordinator of business administration accounting at the Lawrence Kinlin School of Business, said her students love the nature of FANLive. “If somebody's sick, they can attend class from home. When the bus strike was on, it was beneficial. Some have children, if their children are sick, they can stay home.” She uses FANLive for all of her classes, “(The students) use it for review purposes. The international students find it very useful because sometimes I talk too fast. They can listen to it again.”
Another goal for this e-learning initiative is to “fill in the gaps” in immigrants' existing college or university education to help them achieve the credentials to work in Canada.
The meeting's guest of honour, Diane Finley, Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development, seemed impressed by what she saw.
“We had four or five students online with us today for the demonstration so that we could see how they would interact,” she said. “We participated in many ways as another student. We had the experience; we had other students live out there. It was not just virtual reality; it was reality.”
“As the Minister who is working on foreign credentials recognition, I welcome this progress,” said Finley. “It creates tremendous opportunity for people who are professionals who want to come to Canada and have those credentials recognized here so that they can work with the skills and talents for which they have been trained.” A 2008 study that found the unemployment rate for recently landed immigrants with a university degree was 10.7 per cent, compared to 2.4 per cent for Canadianborn workers who are university educated.
“I congratulate Fanshawe on their imagination and their initiative in developing this Elluminate product and the way they're rolling it out through the school. I think it has tremendous potential for the future,” said Finley.
