MISSION
Mission:
Develop courseware and provide language educator accredited training and professional development to support the integration and adaptation of immigrants to Canada and contribute to the modernization of settlement language training. To achieve the project mission, we provide Canadian-centric blended resources and delivery tools, and we train language educators to engage immigrant clients using open-source learning technologies.
Vision:
- A Canadian newcomer population with ready access to information technology to assist their orientation and adaptation to Canada, support the development of their official language skills, and help them build IT foundation skills that will improve their employability and life skills.
- A Canadian community of professional teaching practice (CoP[1]) in the field of Technology-enhanced language learning (TELL) and immigrant settlement language training where:
- resources are freely shared and language educators collaborate to identify, sustain and improve better practices;
- language educators understand the potential of TELL to support learning and teaching;
- skill with learning technology is a basic professional requirement for language educators.
Values:
We strive to:
- Always respect language educators’ needs and capabilities;
- Implement better practices in TELL and the TESOL Technology Standards;
- Innovate constantly in response to a rapidly evolving technical landscape;
- Develop open-source learning management software solutions for free distribution to non-profit educational users;
- Evaluate to constantly improve our skills, and our knowledge of the needs of both immigrant learners and their language educators.
[1] Blended learning. (2012). Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blended_learning “Blended learning in educational research refers to a mixing of different learning environments. It combines traditional face-to-face classroom methods with computer-mediated activities.”
[1] Community of practice. In (2012). Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_of_practice, “A community of practice (CoP) is, according to cognitive anthropologists Jean Lave and Etienne Wenger, a group of people who share a craft and/or a profession. The group can evolve naturally because of the members’ common interest in a particular domain or area, or it can be created specifically with the goal of gaining knowledge related to their field.
