Camerise: The Seed of Sustainable FSL Education

Camerise is the fruit of a shared vision that brings together students, educators, and administrators. Its purpose is to ensure that language learners have access to an inclusive and engaging education, as well as to the support needed to reach their full and unique potential as bilingual and multilingual Canadians.

In its initial offering, Camerise is intended to be a community project that fosters plurilingualism and, more specifically, allows members to transform the field of FSL and language learning through:

• a digitally designed and user-centred platform
• various educational and research initiatives

Camerise will also facilitate cross-institutional sprints or ideathons/creathons for designing knowledge products, micro-credits, AQs, badges, and certificates that serve the mission and goals of each academic and community partner.

Our Mission: A Knowledge Hub Rooted in Collaboration

Camerise has two key missions:

1. to provide an interactive, inclusive, collaborative space that actively promotes and accelerates learning while respecting the voices and experiences of all members, and
2. to support a community of practitioners and researchers as they create meaningful, openly accessible research and educational resources that will keep both professionals and students engaged in lifelong language learning.

Our vision for Camerise as a thriving Knowledge Hub is rooted in the values of equity, empowerment, pluralism, and sustainability. FSL resources and practices are only effective when they are accessible, inclusive, and engaging. Bilingual, FSL-focused OER (Open Educational Resources) will boost the development of innovative FSL models of learning and sharing of knowledge that enhance both the quality of experience and the opportunities available to FSL communities.

Our Team: Grounded in the FSL Community

Camerise is an initiative piloted by York University, Glendon College and other partners. Given its ambitious scope, the foundations for the project are currently being laid out and tested by the core team and FSL stakeholders under the joint leadership of Dominique Scheffel-Dunand, Muriel Peguret and Mirela Cherciov. The project is slated to be rolled out over Spring and Summer 2021. As the platform is being further developed, we invite the entire FSL community to get involved in its continued existence, growth, and success.

To date, the project has been supported with a grant from Canadian Heritage and the Ontario Ministry of Education, and we are happy to announce that funding has been extended for an additional year.

Our Inspiration: Nurturing the Diverse FSL Community 

Informally dubbed the FSL Hub in its early days, Camerise was born from the realization that different stakeholders – educators, students, support staff, parents, policy makers, advocacy groups and bilingual organizations — are likely to have different needs and use research, resources and information in different ways to advance second language acquisition (SLA) and plurilingualism. We are developing and optimizing Camerise with these different audiences in mind.

The word Camerise itself is the fruit of Canada’s French-language community. Camerise is the uniquely French-Canadian term for the haskap, an indigenous hardy oblong blue berry that thrives in boreal climates and is now cultivated across Canada for its exceptional nutritious value. Camerise thus represents both the diverse roots of the Canadian FSL community and its contribution to the evolution and vitality of the French language here and beyond Canada.  

Building on the results of extensive environmental surveys and stakeholder consultations throughout 2020 and 2021, Camerise is designed to be a transformational tool that will progressively:

• allow the FSL and bilingual communities to have quick and centralized access to pertinent information,
• showcase other pan-Canadian FSL/SLA and bilingual initiatives in place or under development to address the systemic challenges FSL and bilingual programs face in Ontario and Canada,
• offer learning and professional development opportunities,
• invite direct engagement from stakeholders and organizations    

• facilitate co-creation of knowledge and learning products in the field, and    

• enable modalities that foster movement of information from practice to research and vice-versa.

Our Objectives: Long-term Growth and Fruitfulness

After a long research, consultation, crafting and prototyping phase, Camerise was introduced to the public in its beta form at the April 2021 OMLTA conference. It has rapidly evolved since then and will be reintroduced to the FSL community and all interested stakeholders in the following weeks and months.

A pan-Canadian event is planned for early June 2021 to:

• Showcase the potential Camerise will afford all audiences
• Launch the co-development phase by drawing on the experiences and expertise of FSL organizations, unions and the community at large and engaging them to build on the existing frameworks
• Allow the FSL community to propose next steps for the evolution of the project

Over Summer 2021 we will also:

• Engage the community to set up the 6- and 12-month agenda of actions and priorities.
• Continue developing knowledge resources with new opportunities for research, educational or professional development, and accessible lifelong learning.
• Measure the success of the initiative and identify areas for improvement with the help of stakeholders and participants

Your Contribution: How You Can Help Camerise Flourish

Camerise - both the collection of OER (open educational resources) and the learning environment      - will rely heavily on the FSL community and bilingual organizations to ensure its success and evolution. It is ultimately a tool created by and for the FSL community. We value your input because you play an important role in community-building both on and off school grounds through your interactions with multiple FSL community members. In a nutshell, Camerise needs:

• The support and participation of all professional, academic, and student members of the FSL community to raise awareness of the initiative and get stakeholders engaged with it and with each other.
• The active expert contribution of FSL stakeholders and bilingual organizations who can produce, share, and develop knowledge resources and content to help Camerise flourish.
• Feedback and advice from all FSL stakeholders on how Camerise should evolve, in terms of both scope and function.

As a representative of an organization that supports or is involved with FSL programming, mentoring and the creation of knowledge, or as a parent, learner, supporter of all things bilingual in Canada, your engagement in developing Camerise is invaluable. If you are part of the FSL community or a bilingual organization, connect with us and state your interest in Camerise by leaving your contact information in the form below. Whether you wish to actively contribute to Camerise or remain an ally, we will keep you informed of upcoming events and the progress of this community project.