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Issue link: http://digital.canadawide.com/i/1458960
MARCH/APRIL 2022 BCBUSINESS 49 ISTOCK which looks like a parking meter riding a Roomba, with a lens and digital display on top. The machine gives users an interactive presence in the classroom. "Your face shows up on the screen," Irvine says. "Your eyes are the webcam that's looking out. And you can use your arrow keys or your mouse, or even a gam- ing console to drive around." Robots and teleconferencing platforms could help solve a key question for edtech researchers: "How do we design accessible, inclusive, climate-friendly options for learn- ers?" Irvine asks. Of course, technolog ical solutions require adequate infrastructure and tools, and that challenge circles back to afford- ability issues. "The problem for some students in parts of B.C.'s North is that they have no good internet connection," points out Hamid Shoaraee, a master's candidate in computer science at UNBC in Prince George. Shoaraee worked as a technology trou- bleshooter in the school's teaching and learning centre, solving people's comput- ing problems. "For some of the services you need your laptop, but some students just use their tablet or phone," he adds. Grant Potter, UNBC's e-learning coor- dinator, says educators must design their courses to accommodate people's needs. "Students were using community centres, community libraries—wherever there were access points for wifi," he reports seeing, especially early in the pandemic when cam- puses were closed. 2022 EDUCATION GUIDE Tomorrow's Classrooms From virtual worlds to digital textbooks, tech is changing how people learn Extended reality A catch-all term for augmented, virtual and mixed reality, XR immerses learners in real-world and digital environments Virtual classrooms Platforms like Bongo and Blackboard Collaborate let students participate, debate and work together remotely Open-source textbooks These digital texts, available for free, make course content more accessible, affordable and customizable Learning management systems Moodle and its LMS peers give instructors and students digital dashboards to organize and run their courses " The problem for some students in parts of B.C.'s North is that they have no good internet connection " –Hamid Shoaraee, master's candidate, computer science, UNBC Potter advises instructors to make course materials available in file sizes small enough for easy downloading, rather than use YouTube links or other tools that require steady internet connectivity. Stu- dents could store a few days' worth of read- ings or videos, then return to a wifi spot to grab more content or upload assignments. "If that is going to be the reality for students, you have to construct your courses so that's easily done," Potter says. MAKING EDTECH WORK Technology is changing how people teach and learn in so many exciting ways that there's growing demand for educators who can use it well. Royal Roads Univer- sity, SFU, UBC and UVic offer graduate programs in educational technology and learning design, with each taking different approaches and practising much of what they teach. UBC's master of educational technol- ogy (MET) degree started as a certificate program in 1997 and was one of the univer- sity's first all-online offerings, says Natasha Boškić. She was one of its first students then, studying remotely from her native Serbia, where she was working as a translator. Now Boškić is director of learning design in UBC's faculty of education and a MET instructor. Her career shows how technology can make education accessible, and by doing so, transform people's lives. "At that time when I took that certificate, I don't think anyone was necessarily thinking about using tech- nology for teaching and learning," Boškić recalls. "Because it was fully online, I could take it from Serbia. It was my opportunity to do something different." Boškić immigrated in 1999 while in the middle of her program, then completed her master's and doctoral degrees. The MET degree is still delivered exclu- sively online, attracting a large proportion of students from abroad. "We have an inter- national population that comes from the United States, China, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, United Arab Emirates and Jamaica," says Samia Khan, the program's director.