LIT2T Leadership Guide

iii TO: TABLE OF CONTENTS OURMISSION, VISION AND VALUES… MISSION: The mission of The LearnIT2teach Project is to 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: Our Vision is a Canadian newcomer population with ready access to information technology to assist their orientation and adaptation to Canada, support the development of their second language skills, and help them build IT foundation skills that will improve their employability and life skills. A Canadian community of professional teaching practice in the field of Technology-Enhanced language learning (TELL) and immigrant settlement language training where: x x resources are freely shared and language educators collaborate to identify, sustain and improve best practices. x x language educators understand the potential of TELL to support learning and teaching, and where skill with learning technology is a basic professional requirement. VALUES: We apply these values to what we do: x x Always respect language educator’s needs and capabilities; x x Implement best practices in TELL and the TESOL Technology Standards; x x Innovate constantly in response to a rapidly evolving technical landscape; x x Develop open source learning management software solutions for free distribution to non-profit educational users; x x Develop and share learning objects aligned to the CLB and support Task-based learning and Portfolio-based Language Assessment (PBLA); x x Encourage other language educators to develop and share their TELL curricula; x x Evaluate to constantly improve our skills, and our knowledge of the needs of both immigrant learners and their language educators. Furthermore, we support a Canadian TELL community of practice for settlement language training professionals by: x x Engagement of the community through creative application of social networking tools suited to the needs and interests of the target training audience; x x Stimulation of thought, discussion, personal reflection, and research and inquiry through articles, audio podcasts, web videos and conference presentations.