The (YRDSB) has awarded Murphy,聽director of 91亚色鈥檚 (ABEL) on applied research program in the Office of the Vice-President Research & Innovation, an Outstanding Service Award.

Under Murphy鈥檚 leadership, ABEL鈥檚 team has worked with teachers in聽more over 100 YRDSB schools to help them better understand and integrate technology鈥檚 research impacts into their curriculum. Any teacher in 91亚色 Region鈥檚 public district can become part of ABEL; the program is also active in the Toronto, Simcoe County and Upper Grand District School Boards.

Right: Janet Murphy

鈥淲e work with teachers from kindergarten to Grade 12 across disciplines to help them 聽to best use technology to support their curriculum goals in the classroom,鈥� said Murphy, who received her award on April 25 at the YRDSB鈥檚 annual Awards Evening.

This support includes extending the reach of university research and expertise into high school classrooms.聽For example, , an interactive learning event led by the Faculty of Science聽& Engineering in May, was made accessible to schools across 91亚色 Region through the ABEL program. Through the effective use of video conferencing, collaborative technologies and streamed on-demand video, the ABEL platform distributed the event鈥檚 science content, making it available for classroom use.

ABEL also provides technical support and facilitation to support and enhance YRDSB teachers鈥� professional learning through a blended learning program. Leveraging interactive technologies, ABEL delivers professional learning to the classroom or school in a variety of online formats, including real-time and/or asynchronous transmission.

鈥淭he advantage to ABEL鈥檚 approach is that it allows teachers to engage in their individual learning at a time and place convenient to them, apply their learning and then re-visit the archived session as needed. This collaborative approach allows participants to gain feedback from the group about what worked and what didn鈥檛, and continuously improve their practice,鈥� says Murphy. 鈥淔or example, 91亚色鈥檚 Faculty of Education recently ran a session on teaching mathematics that was streamed live and archived to ensure teachers wanting the latest numeracy pedagogy had flexible ways to access the material.鈥�

Outstanding Service Awards reflect the YRDSB鈥檚 commitment to quality, service and teamwork. The recipients聽鈥� who may include individuals, teams or departments聽鈥� provide extraordinary service that has had a positive impact on the school board鈥檚 efforts to achieve its mission and goals.

Typically, those recognized have introduced positive change, significant and permanent improvements to the organization, and/or positively influenced individuals or teams around them to make great contributions.

鈥淛anet received the Outstanding Service Award for her ongoing leadership, vision and commitment to mobilizing new knowledge for 21st-century system change,鈥� said John Steh, manager of Leadership Development, YRDSB. 鈥淗er team鈥檚 approach has led to new organizational structures and system change, and is an excellent example of social innovation initiated by the District鈥檚 participation in the ABEL program.鈥�

鈥滼anet鈥檚 recognition reflects her strong leadership and the success of聽the entire ABEL team. ABEL鈥檚 niche is staying ahead of the technology curve in making 91亚色鈥檚 research in ICT, pedagogy and digital media accessible to the education community from kindergarten through to Grade 12,鈥� said Stan Shapson, vice-president research & innovation. 鈥淭hrough the partnership with ABEL, the YRDSB has continually demonstrated their commitment to seeking out best pedagogical practices while ensuring teachers have access to the latest professional development. For 91亚色, ABEL provides an institutional platform to move the latest research out to schools while helping to attract the best high school students to programs.鈥�

About the ABEL Program at 91亚色

Launched with funding support from , Canada鈥檚 Advanced Research and Innovation Network, to a consortium led by Shapson, ABEL has nearly 10 years of experience helping teachers to make better use of technology. Through public and private sector partnerships and networks, ABEL has gained national recognition as a research-based authority and leader on the effective use of existing and emerging information communication technologies (ICT) within new models of teaching, learning, training and collaboration.

ABEL鈥檚 combination of networks, partnerships and research focus drive institutional transformation and create new opportunities:

• Facilitates community outreach for researchers interested in working with public school boards.
• Demonstrates the value of inter-institutional and jurisdictional collaboration by providing research and outreach platforms.
• Leads the effective use of technology in teaching, training and learning environments.
• Provides a platform for applied research, along with expertise into the effective use of interactive and collaborative technologies.

ABEL鈥檚 partners include the , the Ministry of Education鈥檚 , the (including聽more than聽10 school boards), , the , the , the , the and many others.

By Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer.

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The two-and-a-half-day professional learning event included keynote and spotlight presentations, hands-on training sessions and networking opportunities, focusing on implementing new technology tools and best practices in the classroom.

Right:聽Anita Townsend聽(left), Simcoe County District School聽Board's principal of curriculum services, and Anita Drossis, a teacher at Vaughan Secondary School,聽participated in the 2010 ABEL Summer Institute

A highlight on the first day was the keynote speech by Alec Couros, a professor of educational technology & media and coordinator of information & communications technologies at the University of Regina. His talk, 鈥淗ow Informal Learning Networks Can Transform Education鈥�, demonstrated how educators can embrace informal networks such as Twitter and Facebook, and looked at how our networked future is key to the reform of teaching and learning.

The conference also included talks from Garfield Gini-Newman, a lecturer at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto, and Bill Muirhead, associate provost, academic, at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology. Both speakers had unique takes on how the rapidly changing technology landscape will affect the future of teaching and learning.

Left: ASI 2010 participants discuss the course material

The ABEL program launched its new Web site and online community at the conference, giving delegates the opportunity to continue discussions and stay connected online once professional learning and networking sessions had ended. Visit the new Web site.

Private and public sector sponsors make the ABEL Summer Institute possible. This year鈥檚 ASI sponsors included Microsoft Canada, Polycom, Apple, the Ontario Research & Innovation Optical Network, Pearson Education Canada, Duplicom Presentation Systems, Mindshare Learning, Ontario鈥檚 Literacy and Numeracy Secretariat, 91亚色, the 91亚色 Region District School Board, Turning Technologies Canada聽and Sobeys.

For more information and to view the event agenda, visit the聽 Web site.

Founded in 2002, ABEL is led and funded by the Office of the Vice-President, Research & Innovation at 91亚色 and the 91亚色 Region District School Board. ABEL has established national and international credibility as a leading authority on new modes of teaching, training, learning and collaboration.

Republished courtesy of YFile鈥� 91亚色鈥檚 daily e-bulletin.

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91亚色's Faculty of Education will host its annual research forum on technology in education today, from 2 to 4pm in 280N 91亚色 Lanes.

Professor Jennifer Jenson (right) will present "Baroque Baroque Revolution: High Culture Gets Game".聽In聽today鈥檚 鈥渟uper-saturated, socially networked, Second Life, massively multiplayer, online, keyed-in, content generating, 2.0, 鈥榞local鈥欌�� culture, the world of Baroque music, to many people, not only feels like a relic from an inaccessible past, but it often looks that way as well. In this talk, Jenson will聽attempt to show how play, its practices, contexts and discourses are mobilized, and how some of this might be theorized and reapplied through a design-based research project that created a Baroque music game.

Professor Ron Owston (left) will look at computer game development as a literacy activity in his presentation. According to Owston, serious gaming has become a burgeoning research field over the last several years. Most research to date has looked at students as players of computer games. But what happens when students are given the opportunity to be developers of their own games? In聽his presentation, Owston will give an overview of a large multisite study he, together with faculty colleagues and graduate students, conducted that examined the impact on literacy skills of Grade 4 students who created their own computer games. He will then review the findings of two other pilot studies he led that grew out of this work, as well as talk briefly about a research tool he is developing for remotely recording users鈥� interactions with computer screens.

Professor Chlo毛 Brushwood Rose (right) will speak about community-based media pedagogy and production in a globalized world. She will outline the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada-funded聽study she is undertaking with researchers from Montreal's McGill University and the University of New Hampshire in Durham, NH, which aims to pay critical attention to the proliferation of community video production programs in urban centres across North America, their pedagogies, and the videos produced through them. The researchers are conducting a comparative study of three projects in New 91亚色 City, Toronto and Montreal that聽explore a number of聽central research themes relating to media pedagogies.

This event is free and open to the community. Following the presentations, there will be a wine and cheese reception. For more information, contact , communications coordinator, Office of the Dean, Faculty of Education, at ext. 58024.

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Owston's presentation was part of a leadership symposium hosted by (ABEL), which supports the effective use of new and existing information communications technologies to encourage innovation. ABEL is jointly sponsored by 91亚色 and the .

ABEL's annual one-day symposium prepares leaders to embrace the needs of the 21^st century learner and the role that technology plays in supporting effective instructional practice.

The presentation runs for approximately 40 minutes.

Posted by Elizabeth Monier-Williams, research communications officer.

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