Jennifer McPhee
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Sept 03/01) - Northern schools that began accessing online learning courses last year have experienced mixed-to-poor initial results.

The Department of Education, Culture and Employment introduced access to the 30 courses that--with the exception of one Northern Studies course -- were developed in Calgary.

Before students could study subjects such as math and English online, they had to pass an introductory computer course. Teachers were also required to take an online facilitator's course.

Last year, 16 schools throughout the North tried out the program.

And although Paddy Elliot, coordinator of education and operations development for ECE said the program has "exceeded all expectations," some of its facilitators weren't as impressed.

Andrew McInnis oversaw the program at Thomas Simpson Secondary School in Fort Simpson. He agreed with Elliot that online learning is useful in smaller and medium-sized communities in the North with limited course selection.

However, he said his students -- who were initially excited about the program --quickly lost interest. He blamed this partly on a slow response time from Calgary-based instructors when students had problems or e-mailed in tests. He also called the course design inflexible.

Out of his 16 students who began the introductory course, only eight completed the course successfully. He had a zero completion rate for other courses.

Still, McInnis said the program is useful, especially for self-motivated students. "It's another option in certain situations," he said.

Christopher Carson, a senior high teacher at ?ehtseo Ayha School in Deline, said slow Internet speed connections frustrated his students, especially since students had just six weeks to complete the course.

Out of his 20 students who took the starter course, just six passed.

Rayanna Boyle, who taught at Chief Julius School in Fort McPherson last year, also had problems with Internet speed. "I could go down and get a coffee while we waited," she said. "That's how slow it was."

However, the school eventually got high-speed Internet access which helped drastically. Twenty-five students successfully completed the computer course.

"We had a 100 per cent success rate," she said. Three of her students went on to pass other online courses, including ones in science and English.

"I think it really works for our communities," she said. "Because it opens up doors for them."

Boyle added that chances for success are highest when students are motivated and supervised.

"You can't leave them in front of a computer and expect them to do well."