At the AERA conference yesterday I attended a session titled “Pioneering Online Collaborative Learning for High School Students Using a Blended Approach”, given by Sharon Peters – a local secondary teacher. The presentation was part of her Master’s thesis in which she had conducted sime action research into her work with a class of students who used a web-based learning environment to supplement their class work. Because of the similarity with some of the things I am involved with in NZ I ended up chatting with Sharon and her supervising professor – and today took a trip out to visit her at the Lower Canada College here in Montreal. (see photo below – couldn’t resist the shot of the bus, note no spring growth on the trees yet either!)

Lower Canada College is a private, co-ed school here in Montreal. Sharon showed me around their campus, including the computer labs where I saw evidence of robotic work and digital film making. Sharon also talked about work she is doing online with a school in Israel – and we discussed ideas for linking NZ school via video conferencing and/or SmartBoard technology (both of which they have in the school!

Here is Sharon with me – note my friend Albert to the side!
While at her school, I also showed Sharon and her colleagues some of the work we’ve been doing in NZ with the development of the EPS self-evaluation tool, the Virtual Learning Network, and the ICTPD clusters work. Seems like there could be plenty of opportunity for ongoing connections between schools in NZ and Lower Canada College in the future!