how and who and what

The Social and Health Care School in Aarhus provides training and supplementary education for the social workers in the Eastern Jutland.
Up till now this has basically been organized as tradtional one or a few weeks classroom courses.
We are now developing and practicing pilot projects, in which we transform these traditional courses to e-learning courses. During a period of 2-3 months we mix classroom workshops with online learning. The participants are working almost normally during the course - except for the 5 or 6 classroom days.
In the following passages you can read about the concepts of these courses and why we call them High Quality e-learning.
And why we call them a danish model for HQ e-learning for low educated target groups.
It is quite a revolutionary step to develope this kind of learning environment for groups of people with no or very little educational background.

getting startet

In this description we will explain, what we mean by the expression High Quality e-learning.
It is from the very beginning important for us to point out, that our engagement in e-learning environments is not motivated by the ambition to get more education for the same amount of money spent.
We are motivated by the wish to create better and different learning possibilities for the low educated population - thereby fighting the major threat of exclusion of these rather large groups from the information society and the new learning technologies. We are prepared to pay the short terme costs of this High Qaulity, because we believe in the long run effects it produces.

the concept

What we really want to do, is to break down the wall between the low educated groups and the the new media based learning technologies. So we confront groups of social and pedagogical care takers with the best e-learning environments, we are able to create. Knowing that these groups of care takers will not be able to use the wide ranges of learning technologies, we offer them! - in the beginning of the courses.
The goal is to change the traditional courses into e-learning courses, that allow the participants to get acces to and learn to use these technologies.
This means that we transform the traditional one-dimensional and very short school-like courses, that deals with specific topics, to a three-dimensional learning environment, that also deals with personal learning competencies and IT- and media literacy.
A lot of ressources during the courses will be used on workshops, support and mentoring. We know, that the participants will not be able to use the offered technologies, when they enter the courses. But we believe that they during the courses will build up a lot of selfconfidence, so that they will be able to use the new learning technologies in their future working life.
The fundamental learning concept (constructionism and technology fluency) is very much inspired by the Computer Clubhouse Network, that was devoleped by the MIT in Boston during the 90th.
So - instead of giving the care takers isolated IT-courses on one hand and offering them traditional one week school training courses on the other, we try to integrate the development of personal competencies and media competencies into the courses. And instead of doing this in a week, we do it over a period of two or three months.

the goals

Before we define what we mean by High Quality e-learning for the low educated, which is the purpose of this short presentation, let us briefly point out the major goals of the e-learning pilot projects:
- the integration af working and learning: the care takers are dealing with very complex problems every day and they do not benefit from the traditional abstract classroom courses, that always are about what has happened; the
e-learning courses are about, what is happening now; the participants will be able to work with their here and now-experiences and they will be able to integrate the learning into their everyday practice
- building up the selfconfidence of the care takers in relation to the vision of technology fluency: the ability to use modern media in the learning processes is integrated in the courses, so that the participants can experience the concret use value of the technologies; this integration will also support their motivation to learn to use the technologies, because they will feel that the different tools in fact supports their communication and collaboration
- building up the social workers' desire to go on using the new technologies after the courses and desire to further explore the media to find new and interestering ways of learning outside the formal courses: we are not focused on the short terme outcomes of integrating the two new dimensions in the courses, but in the effect the e-learning courses will have on the care takers’ attitudes towards learning and media after the course; have we supported their ability to include themselves in the information society after having built up their selfconfidence, selfesteem and media skills during the course?

HQ target group focus

The most important HQ for these groups of learners is , that they feel that the e-learning environment is designed for them and for their needs. If we confront them with some kind of abstract mainstream e-learning environment, they will not be able to use it.
It is a question of psychological resistance. Most of these learners have very unfortunate experiences from the classrooms in public school. And thay have bad experiences about the abstractions of this school. They have never been able to benefit from the vast amonuts of textbooks and they have never built up selfconfidence in these classrooms.
Therefore they basically do not want to learn. At least not the way, they imagine learning.
So when we create our new e-learning environment, we must not offer them abstract large scale e-learning environments. For these people, that would mean entering a new classroom, an e-classroom.
Therefore we try to create an e-learning environment that reflects the different basic profiles and needs of these learners:
- the e-learning environment must be a combination of being together socially and working in groups online between the school workshops
- the e-learning environment must build up the motivation to e-learn of the participants during several precourse sessions: they do not have this motivation from the start;
- the e-elearning courses must support the learning styles of the participants: they prefere to learn by practical examples end not by theory; they do not want to read a lot of texts, but prefere to act and prefere to work with various kinds of expressions: physical, movies, narratives and visual media
- the tools, content and interfaces must be created to support these learning styles and they must be able to motivate the participants and overcome the resistance towards working with computers and technology.
Working with computers can be just as “abstract” as the traditional classroom, so it is very important to use the creative, visual and communicating potential of the new technology.
The key to motivate this group of participants is to create an online environment, that is designed for them and that can reduce the resistance and motivate them. An abstract e-learning environment will only support the learning resistance.
Therefore we use quite a lot of ressources on creating original material especially designed for this group of e-learners.

HQ learning

On one hand these care takers do not want to learn. That is: they do not think, they are able to learn. On the other hand they want to be taught: a special effect of the resistance is to sit down the first day in the classroom and present a very traditional attitude: the teacher is now going to teach me what I have to know.
These learners do not want to take responsibility and will not be able to work in an e-learning environment. The first and most important action therefore is to motivate them to want to work in new way and to give them a lot of training in relation to online tools, using a computer, communicating on the internet and so on.
The key to succes in this field is patience. We must not think of e-learning in relation to these learners as someting they will do, when the course begins. E-learning will, we hope, be something they can do, when the course is finished!
We must create an e-learning environment, that integrates the learning of
learning. And at the same time: the learning of e-learning.
This is what makes our e-learning courses very, very complex, and this is at the same time what difines the HQ of the learning environment.
Because in the same proces the care takers must, during the same course, be able to:
- learn about the content of the course (the professional problems)
- learn to learn: take on the status of a learning subject and develope a will to learn
- learn to e-learn: develope a motivation for learning and working in a complex structure of professional work, in school sessions and online collaboration
- develope new personal competencies
- develope selfconfidence in the use of the new technologies.

HQ communication

The most important single element in e-learning is the communication tools. Most of the time the participants will work together in groups on the internet. This is very different from the forms of communication, that the care takers are used to and very different from, what they want!
The e-learning proces is therefore at the same time a very complex social and cultural challenge: the care takers like to talk face to face with eachother, they like to talk face to face with their clients and patients. They are not at all used to write to eachother, to a mentor or to themselves in a logbook.
Most of them believe, that they are very poor writers: they make spelling mistakes and are not able to express, what they mean.
The worst thing about online communication for these people is, that the other participants will be able to read what they have written. This can be very embarrasing.
Once again we are facing the psychology of resistance and the lack of technology fluency.
On the other hand the ability to communicate through mails, conference programs and logbooks is perhaps the most important learning element in the e-learning environment.
So we are dealing with a major problem: the participants resist precisely the most important processes in the e-learning course!
This contradiction can not be solved by some workshops or a precourse. It can only be worked through during the course itself. That is why we say, that e-learning is not something they do when they come, but when they go.
To make this happen, you must create some well organized, simple and practical communication tools. It must be very clear from the start what kind of communication we talk about. Who can read my notes and mails and in what contexts? Who can read and write in my group conference, in my logbook and in the general course conference? What happens if I make a lot of spelling mistakes? What do you mean, when you say that I should comment the writings of my group? I'm not a teacher.
So all the promissing potentials in online communication will depend on our ability to set up a very simple and safe conference room and will most certainly depend on our ability to motivate the participants to use the tools.
A wide range of considerations must be made: from the technical functioning af the conferencing software to the graphic interface of the logbook.
We have chosen to create a simple conferencing room in our own First Class-environment: a course conference, a group conference (including a group logbook) and a personal logbook, where you can communicate with the teacher/mentor.
In the precourse wokshops the participants will be practicing in a training conferences and will be able to send a lot of funny messages to each other - while sitting next to each other and thereby getting to know eachother socially.

HQ content

One of the most expensive fields in our e-learning model is the creation of original multimedia content for the courses.
We have established our own in house multimedia team, consisting of three very skilled and very creative multimedia- and webdesigners, that work together with the course teachers to develope multimedia material to the different courses.
It is our vision, that all the online material should be integrated in one case based multimedia production containing all kinds of elements: text, websites, video, and originally developed material made for this special course.
The backbone of this case based online material is the original webbased multimedia material. The productions use all kinds of graphics and all kind of aestethic elements - everything made in house by creative people or made by our associated partners.
The fundamental concept - and in fact the fundamental reason for defining this work as HQ - is: the course participants do not want to work with abstract knowledge in the traditional sense. They prefere movies, stories and plots in which it is possible to identify with a person or a moral conflict.
So: our e-learning material and our learning concept are based on narrative and not abstract knowledge. We create a universe of narratives, cases and stories. And we encourage the care takers to tell there own stories in the group conferences and in their logbooks. And often we in fact use their real life stories to develop new multimedia cases.
And this cencept seems very consistant: their professional job consists exactly in working with narratives, destinies, people with difficult lives. And knowledge will not do the job for them. They need empathy, ability to understand peoples lives and they need to understand there own roles as care takers.
It is very expensive and very time consuming to create multimedia material to our courses. But there are many positive effects: the school developes professional multimedie competencies, the course teachers will be trained to develope their own materials, and because the multimedia productions are online, we are 100 pct. free to change elements in the productions or to use parts of them for other purposes.
The developement of inspiring learning materials, that uses a wide range of different expressions and media, is one of the key challenges in HQ
e-learning.
Every large scale production will suffer from the lack of ability to reach a special group of users with a specific learning style.

HQ effects

When we evaluate the effect of our HQ courses, we are not focused on the media skills of the participants during the course. Nor, at the end of the course, on the results of the work done.
The most interesting part of the evaluation is precisely what also defines the HQ of the courses: the impact of the courses on the participants’ attitude towards the new learning technologies and the degree of will to use these technologies for further knowledge, exploration and personal developement.
The HQ e-learning courses should, because of the HQ, be able to make a measurable difference in the lives of the care takers:
- the courses should have build up their selfconfidence in relation to the use of the learning technologies: the courses should have developed a personal drive towards a far more "natural" way of using the new media for professional and personal purposes
- the courses should have inspired the care takers to introduce some of the technologies and some of the new ways of communicating in their professional lives and among colleagues
- the courses should have developed such skills and technology confidence, that the care takers can join more straightforward e-learning courses in the future, and developed a wish to do so.
To support this continuity between the courses and the future professional lives of the social workers we invite them to keep on working together in the conference groups after the course. The school will provide support and evaluation of this continued netbased collaboration as long as the participants are interested. And it is, of course, also our responsibility to support this interest.
Almost all of the care takers complain about the lack of mutual support between colleages. Their biggest problem in their professional lives is precisly, that they feel left alone with very complex and very complicated social problems - and with very few ressources.
So the HQ of the e-learning courses is, last but not least, to provide the care takers with the skills and motivation to overcome this isolation in their professional lives with the use of modern communication technology. And do so, and that is very important, as learning subjects and not as educational objects.
This ambition of the HQ e-learning is the most important and the most difficult - but also the far most challenging!

what society gets

To provide this special quality is expensive. It takes time and it demands a lot of ressources. So in the short run this is not, financially speaking, a very good idea.
Why, then, should society use a lot of ressources on HQ e-learning? What do society get back? As a return on investements?
Nothing in the short run, but in the long run things look quite different:
- the HQ e-learning is able to work with the participants psychological resistance towards learning and change
- the HQ e-learning is capable of establishing new structures of responsibility, personal and professional, in the mental models of the participants
- the HQ e-learning will, through the changed attitudes among the care takers and other low educated groups, contribute to the general change in the polulation towards public health care: the learning patient
- the HQ e-learning will contribute to the overcoming of the isolation of the care takers and to new forms of collaboration, that will lead to higher quality in the health care services and will reduce the amount of "burnt out" professionals
- the HQ e-learning is the first step of inclusion of large parts of the population in lifelong learning.

The point is, that the HQ e-learning will support the long run strategic goals in the health sector. An that is, no doubt, extremely financially interesting.