BCBusiness

March/April 2022 – The Business of Good

With a mission to inform, empower, celebrate and advocate for British Columbia's current and aspiring business leaders, BCBusiness go behind the headlines and bring readers face to face with the key issues and people driving business in B.C.

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MARCH/APRIL 2022 BCBUSINESS 51 ISTOCK Their outcomes reflect the diversity of their backgrounds, Khan continues: "We have students that work to develop high- performance teams, students that are involved as chief innovation officers in their organizations and people who want to build games." Those career paths show learning doesn't stop after graduation. Tech-savvy educators will find demand for their skills far beyond the walls of academia. UBC's decision to design its MET degree in a strictly online format makes it scalable and accessible to many people regardless of what time zone they live in. "We have over 430 graduate students in our program at the master's level," Khan says. Royal Roads offers its master of arts in learning and technology ( MALAT) in a blended or online format. Students who choose the blended option begin with two weeks' residence at the lush Greater Victoria school before joining a cohort of classmates studying remotely. Lisa Gedak chose the on-campus start in 2019 alongside five others, out of a class of 24. She says the intimacy of the residency experience is life changing. "The six of us have remained friends and have remained close—and probably we're closer than the others—because of that opportunity," she beams. The downside? "You do have to get used to the peacocks waking you up early, 2022 EDUCATION GUIDE " We have students that work to develop high- performance teams, students that are involved as chief innovation officers in their organizations and people who want to build games " –Samia Khan, program director, master of educational technology (MET), UBC Teaching the Teachers These local university programs help educators to become tech and learning leaders Royal Roads University Programs: MA in learning and technology (MALAT); graduate diploma in learning and technology; graduate diploma in technology-enhanced learning and design Format: Blended and online courses allow partly or fully remote learning SFU Programs: MA and PhD in educational technology and learning design Format: Small, in-person classes take place on evenings and weekends to accommodate working professionals UBC Programs: Master of educational technology (MET); graduate certificate in educational technology Format: Fully online and mostly asynchronous programs let learners study from anywhere UVic Programs: MEd in educational technology for educators and administrators; MA and PhD for aspiring edtech researchers Format: Core courses are synchronous and in person because they are right outside of your dorm." These days, Gedak works for Royal Roads and Kwantlen Polytechnic Univer- sity from her home on Pender Island and runs a consulting business for digital learn- ing. She's loved innovation and electronic wizardry since she learned to use a Com- modore 64 computer as a child but says the best edtech focuses on people and how they learn: "I'm most impressed by technologies that can support engagement and human- ize experiences." Mariel Miller is director of technology integrated learning at UVic, where the team she leads helps faculty and students use tech to teach and learn. Even at a traditionally on-location university, Miller says, the lines between remote and in-person studying are blurring. "I don't think there's a clear distinc- tion between online and blended, or hybrid and face to face," she contends. "There's just a lot of technology-mediated learning across all teaching modalities now." Document-sharing platforms, video- conferencing tech, chat apps and other tools enable students to engage with learn- ing materials, instructors, and their fellow classmates with greater ease and flexibil- ity regardless of their location. Still, Miller offers a reminder: "It's important not to let technology drive the learning experience." Rout, the BCIT education innovation leader, would agree with that last statement. He chose to earn his PhD from SFU because it offered one of the few opportunities to learn about his field at a doctoral level. But it was also because he could attend classes on campus, at times that fit his full-time work- ing schedule. "So yeah, there's a bit of irony there," Rout admits of studying edtech in an old- school manner. "But as I think about it now, that just makes sense." "The best, most effective way to learn together is to be together—to physically be together. We're human beings," Rout reflects. "Conversations happen in between the cracks. We have a class and you go for a coffee, and you talk about things with your classmates. You don't do that when you're on a Zoom call." n

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