- Collegial Centre for Educational Materials Development
-
Collegial Centre for Educational Materials Development 
Location 6220 Sherbrooke Street East, Suite 404
Montreal, Quebec H1N 1C1, CanadaInformation Established August 1993 Director Bernard Dionne Website ccdmd.qc.ca The Collegial Centre for Educational Materials Development (CCDMD) produces computer-based resources and printed documents for teaching staff and students throughout the Quebec college network, and is managed by Collège de Maisonneuve.
Contents
History
The CCDMD was founded in 1993 further to a major revamping of the Direction générale de l’enseignement collégial (directorate of college education) in Quebec. It was previously a division of the Department of Education, called Service de développement de matériel didactique (department for educational materials development), whose role was to provide educational, technical and financial support to college teachers wishing to produce quality printed or computer-based educational material. When its administration was transferred to Collège de Maisonneuve in 1993, it became the CCDMD.
The centre is funded mainly by the ministère de l'Éducation, du Loisir et du Sport du Québec, and some of its services are also supported by funding from the Canada-Quebec Agreement on Minority-Language Education and Second Languages Instruction.
Mandate
The mandate of the CCDMD is to ensure that students and teachers of the Quebec college network have access to quality educational materials in both English and French, and also to contribute to the development of these materials at the various stages of production. Most documents produced by the CCDMD are developed by teachers within the college network or by outside specialists supported by a member of the teaching faculty and academic dean of a college. A call for projects is held each year from November to March, providing the opportunity for any teaching or professional staff member among the 48 public or 22 private colleges in Quebec to submit a project for the development of educational materials, by completing a project presentation form.
Resources by Discipline
The CCDMD produces materials for students in a wide range of courses and programs, as well as documents specifically aimed at improving English or French language skills. Its catalogue includes over 200 educational resources, a large collection of manuals and a rich educational heritage.
Improving French
Site d'amélioration du français du CCDMD
Further to the implementation of the plan of action to improve and promote French language skills in college educational institutions, in 1989, the then existing Service de développement de matériel didactique created the French language program. Today, a considerable portion of the documents produced by the CCDMD are aimed at improving the French language. The website provides hundreds of resources to French language help centres in the college network, teachers, tutors and students.
The site includes a wide variety of interactive materials: educational games, linguistic capsules, diagnostic tests, guided exercises, revision strategies as well as interactive exercises.
The site also includes a comprehensive collection of printed documents providing educational tools as well as grammar exercises and information on the French language test.
Since 1995, the CCDMD has also been publishing a newsletter called Correspondance three times a year. This publication is aimed at anyone concerned with improving the French language in the college network.
The Learning Centre
Learning Centre CCDMDThe English-language division of the CCDMD was created in 2005, and in turn, in 2006, it developed a section dedicated specifically to improving the English language, the Learning Centre. This section includes a variety of resources in the form of exercises, readings, tutorials, interactive activities, audio and video clips: • revision and correction strategies for English texts; • exercises and tips to pass the English Exit Exam (or Ministerial Examination of College English), the equivalent of the Épreuve uniforme (standardized test) in French, that any student registered in an English college must pass to obtain a college diploma; • an Internet directory of the best sites for English language improvement, including a search engine; • a large number of useful resources for students, both in English and French colleges.
The mandate of the Learning Centre is to help students to develop their ability to express themselves in English, improve their English-language reading, writing and comprehension skills, and provide teachers with quality educational materials.
World of Images
World of Images, CCDMDWorld of Images is a directory designed to meet the immense need to use copyright-free photographs, illustrations and videos for the production of quality educational materials. The site originated as Le Québec en images, but the project quickly expanded with the virtual proximity of users on the Web and the growing number of intercultural exchanges, and resulted in the World of Images, a collection constantly enriched by the many users and partners who agree to share their media. Its main objectives are to: • provide free space for storing and managing photographs, illustrations and videos of all kinds (artistic, documentary, educational, scientific, etc.); • gather a significant part of the media produced as part of all the college activities: demonstrations, lectures, research, assignments, artistic productions, foreign internships, exemplary practices, etc.; • create theme-based albums to organize images according to their representative subject; • promote exchanges between users by allowing them to vote for their favourite media, share it through social networking sites and post comments.
Netquiz Pro
Netquiz Pro is a software application for creating Web-based exercises or tests, without any programming or knowledge of HTML language. It is in fact an Internet/Intranet software development tool that generates all the components of the quiz in a folder, which can then be installed on a server.
SurveyAuthor
SurveyAuthor is an editing application for Web-based surveys. It allows you to create nine types of survey questions (matching, multiple choice, Likert-type scale, etc.). These questions can include text, images, sound, video, and web hyperlinks, and can be configured in various ways. The questionnaires produced by SurveyAuthor can also be customized to meet specific user requirements.
The CCDMD on iTunes U
The CCDMD joined iTunes University (iTunes U) in December 2010. It is the first college organization to make educational content available on this distribution platform, and the third educational institution in Quebec to join, after University of Montreal and McGill University. The CCDMD has been distributing videos for six of its products on iTtunes U, thereby providing teachers and students with ready and free access to audio and video educational content. The files can be viewed or downloaded wherever you are on a Mac OS or Windows workstation, or on a digital player, and an interface is available for both the iPad and iPhone.
References
- CCDMD website
- Correspondance
- Le bulletin CLIC
External links
Categories:
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
