Online curriculum centre

Online curriculum centre

Faculty member training, April 2009

© International Baccalaureate Organization 2007

Oracle database


What is the OCC?

A service designed to support teachers of the IB curriculum in all three academic programmes

A 24-hour Internet service available in English, French, Spanish and Chinese.

A database of educational resources that uses the power of the Internet to give IB teachers the platform to share and exchange their knowledge and expertise.


The OCC allows teachers to:

view the contents of curriculum materials exchange details of useful resources (eg web sites,

books, magazines) exchange teaching ideas discuss curriculum issues with other teachers from

around the world have active input into curriculum developments read the latest IB news and information take part in online training.


The OCC allows teachers to:

But most importantly…

It enables teachers to become actively involved in a growing and dynamic online learning community


Growth of registered users (Mar 03 to Apr 09)


OCC users by programme (total = 104131)

62769, 60%

22975, 22%

18387, 18%

DP

MYP

PYP


OCC users by language (total = 104131)

89%

1%

3% 7%

ENGLISH

CHINESE

FRENCH

SPANISH


DP Film (total = 108)

107, 99%

0, 0% 1, 1% 0, 0%

English

French

Spanish

Chinese


PYP (total = 18429)

16731, 92%

281, 1%1255, 7% 0, 0%

English

French

Spanish

Chinese


OCC statistics

Resources There are 14229 resources available on the OCC

Discussion Forums There are 168254 messages posted and 55406 topics

in the discussion forums.


Role of the online faculty

Two key areas• Discussion forums • Managing resources

Faculty member competencies.


Faculty Member Competencies – Am I?

Quality

Characteristic 1. Confident 2. Constructive

A. Understanding of online processes

B. Technical skills

C. Online communication skills

D. Content expertise

E. Personal Characteristics

Confident in providing a focus for discussion groups, can intervene and judge participants’ interest. Is an online role model.

Confident in operational use of OCC software; good keyboard skills; good internet access.

Confident in being courteous, polite, and respectful in online communication.

Confident in having knowledge and experience to share, and willing and able to add own contributions.

Confident in being determined and motivated as a faculty member.

Able to build online trust and purpose; to know and understand their curriculum area’s target audience and what they can do to add to the OCC knowledge product.

Able to appreciate the basic structures of the OCC, and the WWW and Internet’s potential for building online communities.

Able to write concise, energizing, personable online messages.

Able to encourage sound and relevant contributions from others.

Able to establish an online identity as a faculty member.


Quality

Characteristic 3. Developmental 4. Facilitating


B. Technical skills




Ability to develop and enable others, act as catalyst, foster discussion, summarise, restate, challenge, monitor understanding and take feedback.

Know how to use special features of software for faculty members, such as editing, archiving etc.

Able to engage with people online – not the machine or software.

Able to trigger debate by posing intriguing questions.

Able to adapt to new communication concepts, methods, audiences and roles.

Know when to control groups, when to let go, how to bring in non-participants, know how to pace discussion and use time online.

Able to use features of software for faculty members to explore user participation eg. message history.

Able to interact through discussion forums and achieve interaction between others.

Carry authority through helping with misunderstanding e.g. the interpretation of assessment criteria.

Show sensitivity to online relationships and communication.

Faculty Member Competencies – Have I?


Quality

Characteristic 5. Knowledge construction

6. Creative


B. Technical skills




Able explore ideas, develop arguments, promote valuable threads, close off unproductive threads, choose when to archive. Build on the OCC knowledge product.

Able to create links between discussion forums & OCC resources.

Able to value diversity with cultural sensitivity, explore differences & meanings. Is able to summarise active threads.

Knowledgeable about valuable resources (e.g. on the Internet) & refers teachers to them.

Able to show a positive attitude, commitment & enthusiasm for online community building.

Able to use a range of approaches from structured activities (e-tivities) to free wheeling discussions, & to evaluate & judge success of these.

Able to use software facilities to create & manipulate conferences & to generate an online learning environment, able to use alternative software & platforms. Able to communicate comfortably without visual cues, able to diagnose & solve problems & opportunities online, use humour online, use & work with emotion online, handle conflict constructively.

Able to enliven online discussions through use of multi media & electronic resources, able to give creative feedback & build on teachers’ ideas.

Knowledgeable about how to create & sustain a useful, relevant online community.

Faculty Member Competencies – Am I?

Kno

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shar

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& in

tera

ctiv

ity

Knowledge taking

Teacher-resource facilitation

IBO publications and resources

Access and motivation

Setting up system and accessing

Welcoming and encouraging

= OCC & technical support = WSL & FM functions

Online socialisation

Bridge building

Posting and responding to messages

Knowledge product construction

Eliciting resourcesFacilitating exchange

Development

Supporting,

sharing

Going beyondcurriculum area

The OCC – ‘growing’ online communities

Documents

Online curriculum centre