About OLE
Kia ora and welcome to the Online Learning Environments website. This website is designed to provide information to assist schools as they develop and manage an online learning environment (OLE) in order to provide quality learning experiences for all students.
Use this website to:
- identify your current and future learning and teaching needs to tailor an for your school
- keep up to date with current thinking, educational practice, and developments in technology
- find resources and explore a range of software options to establish or update your school’s OLE.
Why use an OLE?
Schools are committed to providing learning experiences and educational outcomes that are organised around students’ needs. Informed management and use of an OLE has the potential to support this goal by providing more choice for schools, teachers, learners, and their communities as to how they engage in education and learning activities.
The ability to access anywhere, anytime learning experiences in a supportive but challenging environment provides the school community with an opportunity to be involved in learning. It enables connections beyond the classroom to enhance learning, through access to a safe and secure online learning space.
When embedded into teaching and learning, an OLE can aid the management of the learning process. Teachers have a key role in managing the OLE to ensure that learning remains a focus and that they, as leaders of learning, are visible within the environment.
The careful selection of communication, collaboration, and management tools within the OLE allows teachers greater flexibility as they support young people to become confident, connected, actively involved, lifelong learners.
What is an OLE?
An OLE is a protected online environment that combines and manages a collection of tools and web services to provide enhanced learning experiences. It can take many forms: the school’s intranet, a selection of web tools, or a proprietary software package. However, it should provide:
- anywhere, anytime access to learning resources that are created and stored by or for the learner
- communication tools to enable collaborative and cooperative learning with peers, mentors, and teachers
- management tools that are required for the learning process.
For more information about the nature and purpose of OLEs, download and read the Online Learning Environments pamphlet (Doc 1.7MB).
What work is the Ministry of Education doing?
The Ministry of Education is establishing a working group, initially comprising school leaders and practitioners, and Ministry staff, to draft and implement an action plan for designing and promoting an educationally relevant, open, modular, standards-based, sustainable approach to OLE development and use in New Zealand schools. Supported by the working group, the Ministry will offer leadership, direction, and guidance on OLE to the sector.
Disclaimer
Inclusion of vendors on the Online Learning Environments website does not imply endorsement by the Ministry of Education, nor does exclusion imply the opposite. It remains the purchaser’s responsibility to conduct their own evaluation of a product and to give their own independent consideration to the license and other contractual terms proposed by the supplier in each instance. The Ministry of Education accepts no responsibility for any loss or damage sustained by a purchaser as a result of their reliance on information contained on this website.
Every endeavour is made to ensure the software details are correct at the time of publication. It is recommended that contact be made with vendors through the links provided, to access the latest product information.
The Ministry of Education is not a reseller of products and purchasers are required to contact resellers directly. Feedback is welcomed on pricing, products, and information, as well as suggestions for products for inclusion on the website. Please contact olefeedback@tki.org.nz.