About Online Learning

Background

Changes over the past ten years have broadened the options for students enrolling in courses for the Higher School Certificate. Students are no longer confined to a mostly academic pathway or limited to courses that can be taught at their schools. It is now possible to study using several different modes of delivery, attending different campuses and institutions, pursuing various pathways over a number of years. The information in this section deals with one such mode of delivery.

Online, flexible delivery courses have been made available to students in diocesan and congregational schools to cater for specific student needs.

It is not the intention of either the diocese nor of individual schools to replace existing face-to-face classes with flexible delivery modes. What schools are endeavouring to do is to maintain a Catholic education for these students and to provide them with access to subjects that traditionally have created timetable difficulties due to their very small class size.

The following pages outline general and specific information about the Diocese of Lismore Online Education Centre program for parents and students.

History

The Online Education Centre commenced operation in 2003 and with the assistance of the Maitland-Newcastle, Broken Bay and Wagga Wagga Dioceses have been delivering a number of online flexible delivery online education courses to senior high school students in Catholic schools in all 11 diocese across NSW.

The subjects delivered are ones which schools traditionally have difficulty running due to small candidature or lack of expertise at the local school level.

What is online, flexible delivery, distance education?

Online learning is an evolving form of distance education that is experiencing tremendous growth as a result of increased use of personal computers, growth in internet access and lower technology costs.

It is in widespread use in higher education institutions and is now enjoying strong support in many high schools.

It is essentially a form of teaching and learning that uses computer based internet technologies where students, regardless of location, have access to staff and services. The technology provides a gateway for instruction, communication and the provision of links to other educational resources to enhance the learning experience.

How does it operate for students in each diocese/School?

Students across NSW enrol in the Diocese of Lismore Online Education Centre to study a single subject. They attend their home school for all other subjects. Through an internet presence and various technologies, the provision of an online teacher, a school mentor (teacher) and both online and supplementary materials we are able to provide a means of delivering course content to students regardless of their location. Students will have time each week with the teacher and fellow students connected via the internet in lecture and tutorial sessions out of school hours. Students follow up theses lessons by completing set work in their own time either at school or at home.

Ongoing feedback is provided by the teacher who is available to provide assistance online on a daily basis. Students are required to attend a workshop with the teacher and fellow students once each term at a regional centre close to their home school.

Delivery

The delivery of online courses to students in each diocese and school  is achieved through the use of emerging internet technologies and existing telephone and broadband services. A teacher, based at one of the diocesan schools, will use this infrastructure to teach students in various other schools. Some lessons will involve being ‘online' together, i.e. synchronous delivery. Students follow up these lessons by accessing the course material and resources and completing set work in their own time, i.e. asynchronously. This asynchronous delivery can take place at school during the normal school day or at home in the student’s own time. However, in order to meet the course requirements and to cater for all schools and students it will be necessary to timetable the synchronous classes after school each week. This is similar to existing arrangements for Extension English, Mathematics and History that already exist in some schools, although students would not need to remain at school in order to participate.