Manitoba is leading the nation in providing teachers with an online resource that will allow educators to share learning resources, network with specialists and share best practices to enhance quality of education. This announcement was made by Education and Advanced Learning Minister James Allum while at the opening of the 2013 Manitoba Social Science Teachers’ Association SAGE Conference at Kildonan East Collegiate as he launched the Manitoba Professional Learning Environment (MAPLE), an online network that provides educators, regardless of where they are located in Manitoba, access to effective professional learning services.
“MAPLE is an online professional learning environment that will link teachers from across the province and allow them to access the latest curriculum, share learning resources and ideas on how to improve education and support students,” said the minister. “MAPLE is part of our strategy to improve the quality of education in Manitoba by making sure teachers have the tools they need to support student success.”
MAPLE provides access to a variety of tools including moderated discussions, searchable libraries of resources, wiki online databases, blogs, registration to events, news and sharing of resource collections in all subject areas across the curriculum.
Some other key benefits of MAPLE include:
- building a dynamic, bilingual (English/French) web-based environment that provides easy access to educator-focused services and resources;
- providing educators access to the latest curriculum documents and learning resources;
- linking teachers together to facilitate collaboration among educators, and between educators and specialists;
- creating a forum where teachers can provide feedback to the Department of Education and Advanced Learning; and
- offering membership to all Manitoba educators, clinicians and pre-service teachers; university or college faculty are invited to join as guests.
“Teachers need reliable access to the human and material resources necessary for good teaching and learning to occur,” said Paul Olson, president, Manitoba Teachers’ Society. “MAPLE has the potential to connect far more Manitoba teachers to the colleagues and raw materials we need to do our best work.”
