Case Studies

There was a need for a larger variety of languages to be learnt in the region of Eastern Finland. By offering language courses that contain a certain course fee the students were given the opportunity to learn also those languages that were not offered by the school they attended. Students in Eastern Finland were offered equal opportunities for further training and for work via this project network.

The aim of the ISO-network project was to support small upper secondary schools and to create a network of training providers and of developers in the Eastern Finland. It was aimed to make this network a permanent institution. The network had the objectives to promote and develop the cooperation between the upper secondary schools in the region, to collect, create and make use of online learning materials of good quality as well as to develop the methods of online learning and of the cooperative methods of learning. The ISO-network develops training solutions and programs that support different learners with different learning styles and that are individual, flexible and usable by people in the network’s region. Support is also give to the teachers as they are approaching a new way of teaching and facing a new and changing role of a teacher.

The ISO-network disseminates the qualitative procedures of teaching foreign languages by developing the support activities and services for online learning, by promoting their use in online courses and as a support for classroom teaching. New online courses and course contents have been developed by the help of pedagogical cooperation and collegial support.

Online materials and teaching activities are gathered together in a material bank (called ”ISOpool”) and a database and a distribution channel have been created to support it. These materials and teaching activities can be used without charge by the teachers that belong to the ISO network. The material bank for foreign languages offers a lot of material containing sound, image and texts. These materials can be used as well in online teaching as in traditional classroom teaching.

The new network of schools enables more opprotunities for foreign language learning. Cooperation in gathering existing materials and developing new materials and teaching ideas offers teachers new ways of teaching. Cooperation and sharing experience and materials gives new possibilites to develop language teaching both in online courses and in traditional classroom teaching. The outcomes of the project - the ISO-network and the material bank with the database and distribution channels are supposed to continue as an active way to support teaching and learning also after the project.

The ISO network is continuing its activities.
Material bank and database in an active use by teachers. More languages to be offered for students.

The theme of the year 2006 was the diversification of languages to be learnt:
The big number of online language learning materials that are developed in the ISO-network project enables the variety of languages on offer for the networking schools. Also the training that has been provided for the teachers supports foreign language learning. Students can learn languages that are not taught in their schools by using the online materials and with the help of an online tutor who is in charge of the learning materials, exercises, feedback and evaluation.

- Promotion of the European identity via language learning
- Increase of awareness of language learning
- Development of learning environments that support language learning

The ISO-network supports small upper secondary schools in the Eastern Finland. Online learning enables a large language choice, a network of schools and developers.
Altogether 69 training institutions participate in the cooperation via this network and the work is carried out in a well organised way. The outcomes of the material development work are excellent and the learning results are good.
The sense of community and networking serves as an axample for other projects.

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