In 2009, Ministry of Education designated literacy as the overarching theme for the e-Ieaming teacher fellowship programme. Teachers were invited to submit plans for class-based inquiries with a literacy focus and to provide evidence of their expertise in literacy as well as in e-Iearning. This marked a shift from earlier fellowships, where teachers chose their own topics of inquiry.
The 2009 e-fellowship programme also included a research component, which involved a group of researchers from CORE Education and NZCER analysing data collected from across the e-fellows' classrooms to answer the question: 'How are e-Iearning contexts used effectively to support the literacy learning needed for the 21 st century?' This question aligns with Area 1 of the e-Learning Research and Evaluation Framework: 'Understanding the relationship between ICT, schools, teaching and learning; and with the Ministry's strategic priorities of literacy development, 21st Century learning, quality teaching, and effective pedagogies for diverse learners.
The findings of this research generated new knowledge about the affordances of e-Iearning contexts for literacy teaching and learning (McDowall, 2010). The findings also provided possibilities for transforming our thinking and practice about literacy more generally. This chapter provides a brief overview of the research, describes our findings, and discusses some implications for policy and practice.
In V. Ham & D. Wenmoth (Eds.), eLearnings: Implementing a national strategy for ICT in education, 1998 - 2010. Christchurch: CORE Education.