EPLT Online

Last week’s Macleans was their University Ratings issue, with numerous helpful articles on various aspects of student life, how to succeed in a number of different disciplines, and even student/professor romantic relationships.  One of these articles, however, hits a bit closer to home.

“Networking U” is an article about how universities use learning technologies to help their students succeed in the modern university setting by engaging their students in different ways.  Since UBC is one of the pioneers in the field, it is featured heavily in the article, along with York, University of Victoria, and Carleton. It even has input from ETEC 540′s very own Brian Lamb!

“At the University of British Columbia, the Learning Enhancement Academic Partnership program—or LEAP—builds on the idea of multi-platform learning. It’s a portal for tools and resources that’s been online since 2005. Brian Lamb, manager of emerging technologies and digital content at UBC, says that weblogs and wikis aren’t new phenomena at UBC—in fact, the university pioneered the use of these learning tools in Canada. LEAP takes online resources even further by giving students and those managing the site the ability to aggregate their own content. On LEAP, students blog about campus life and academics; there are also helpful links and tips on various tech topics, such as how to find and use academic podcasts, or where to find and download flash card software for studying. (The portal also lets students share the tools with friends via Twitter.) “Getting students to manage their own learning experience is extremely important,” says Michelle Lamberson, director of the Office of Learning and Technology at UBC.”

Read the whole thing, as it offers some very good insights about navigating this virtual world for university students.  Some MET students may want to go into this field after graduation.  In fact, some of them already have, with at least three graduates being hired by UBC that I know of (and very possibly more).