| LearnCanada is organized into three
sequential phases, with parallel work packages within each phase: Phase 1,
Requirements Definition; Phase 2, Development Phase; Phase 3, Field
Trials. Phase 1 entails specification of user interfaces, preliminary
design of a professional development program and connection to CA*net 3 of
one school in three of the six participating school boards. Phase 2
comprises connecting one site within the three remaining school boards and
additional schools within boards, development of software, content, and
middleware, and preparation for Phase 3. Phase 3 is LearnCanada's
field test, with selected teams of teachers from each of the six school
boards participating in professional development. Phase 3 includes
professional development evaluation of the field test, as well as
development of infrastructure and middleware requirements for scaling up
in continuations of LearnCanada. LearnCanada's participants
are organized into five teams: Infrastructure; Software/Multimedia;
Instructional Design; Virtual Community Development; Project Management
and Research and Evaluation. LearnCanada's Integrated Project
Development Team Model is described in the Project Management section of
this document.
Milestone / Deliverables:
Phase I - Requirements Definition
Infrastructure
- Progressive deployment of
Network Operations Centre (NOC) and Protocol Services and Technologies (PST)
- Training of technical leads
within each school board
- Connection of 3 nodes to the
NOC; with 10-100 Mb/s connections to CA*net 3
- Performance evaluation and
definition of user requirements
Instructional Design
- Teacher team selections,
orientation and team building sessions
- Professional development
training session(s) on Project Based Learning (PBL)
- Collection and assessment of
supporting professional development resources
- Identification of PBL
projects
Software and Multimedia
- Conduct software useability
focus groups
- Review COTS software
- Define software requirements
- Review existing video and
multimedia content
- Define multimedia content
requirements
Virtual Community Development
- Initial development of
strategic, marketing and business plans
- Implement communications
plan for project
- Support Infrastructure team
in definition user requirements for CSCW
- Coordinate and host team
building and orientation session for all work package teams
- Define requirements and
expectations and initial draft of MOU for associate partners
- Coordinate monthly Founding
Member steering committee meetings
Research and Evaluation
- Development of evaluation
plan
- In consultation with project
participants, develop initial evaluation tools
- Collect data, analyze
results and make required modifications
Phase II - Development
Infrastructure
- All six school boards
connected to CA*net 3
- Incorporation of user
requirements
- Full deployment and
modification of broadband testbed to all sites
- Ongoing performance
evaluation
Instructional Design
- Support software development
team in defining software requirements
- Assessment of existing
professional development multimedia content
- Development of PBL resources
- Support external evaluator
in data collection for program evaluation
Software & Multimedia
- Employ a user-centered
design to integrate existing off-the-shelf (COTS) software and develop
new software prototypes for field trials
- Develop and test multimedia
software
- Digitize, edit and create
metadata for existing and new multimedia content into reconfigurable
multimedia learning objects for field trial validation by K-12 educators
- Develop multimedia access
and reconfigurability method
- Develop and test multimedia
databases
- Full integration and testing
Virtual Community Development
- Ongoing implementation of
Communications Plan (modifications where required)
- Review of literature on
virtual learning communities
- Evaluation of barriers to
cross-sector cross-regional partnerships
- Produce ongoing virtual
encounters, national and international
- Coordinate monthly Founding
Member steering committee meetings
- Ongoing coordination of
Associate Partners
- Establishment of a virtual
peer K-12 learning community
Evaluation
- Update evaluation tools
- Collect data and analyze
results
- Review evaluation results
and produce draft report
- Collect and review feedback
from multiple review groups
- Year one summative research
and evaluation report
Phase III - Field Trials
Infrastructure
- Expansion of the Controlled
Experimental Testbed
- Equipment configuration and
installation of new software
- Develop test plan
- Conduct testing
- Recommend for migration to
NOC
- Creation of technical web
site
- Ongoing training for
technical leads in each school board
- Final technical acceptance
demonstration
Instructional Design
- Provide user requirement
feedback to Infrastructure and Software/Multimedia teams on field
trial(s)
- Implementation of PBL
projects
- Presentation at PD days
- Participate and contribute
to national and international broadband K-12 professional development
conferences
- Write final report and
present at national and/or international conference
Software and Multimedia
- Conduct professional
development field trials
- Deliver alpha, beta and
final prototype
- Recommendations for future
software content
- Write final report and
present at national and/or international conference
Virtual Community Development
- Establish and expand a
virtual community of K-12 educational practitioners to collaborate in
the development of innovative broadband applications and services for
professional development.
- Plan and implement 3
national/international PD sessions
- Coordinate/host broadband
enabled learning conference
- Write final report and
present at national and/or international conference
Evaluation
- Update evaluation tools
- Collect data and analyze
results
- Validate revisions and
distribute report
- Conduct formative and
summative research and evaluation for each of the LearnCanada
work packages and assimilate results into a final comprehensive
evaluation report.
Figure 1 - Work Breakdown Structure
Figure 2 - Task or Milestone Responsibility Matrix
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