Hello everyone,
I’m Devon, originally and currently from southern Ontario. I’ve worked in education of different forms for most of my career: as a language teacher in Asia, adult education in Canada (specifically in finance) and recently high school math and physics in an international school in China.
After being rather stuck in place for the duration of the pandemic (first time back in Canada in four years), I’ve decided to take something of a sabbatical year and focus on the MEt program and other personal development goals while I plan my next move. So far I’ve completed two courses in the program and working on the next two this semester.
Educational technology has interested me because I’ve always been interested in science and technology, and traditional blackboard based lecture classes were always underwhelming for me. Adding new technology can improve the situation whether in formal classroom based teaching, or more unstructured situations. My personal experience with the latter was making progress with learning Mandarin, with a variety of apps, videos and translation software making the bulk of my support systems.
I’m personally very interested in this course as it seems to really give us scope to dig into the questions of how, why and when educational technology can be used to change the status quo. Not sure where all this will take me, but that’s kinda the point of program and course for me: to help find out which direction makes sense for me.
Hello Devon, I have also taught in international schools (I lived in Hanoi, Vietnam for two years starting in 2021) however I teach the younger grades so not so much physics instruction! I love what you said about changing the status quo and I look forward to seeing what kinds of things you want to work on!
My wife teaches kindergarten so I got to see a bit of that world, plus seeing what my kids were up to in elementary school. Teaching younger kids is quite an art; not sure I have the chops for it…
I also think teaching older kids takes a certain kind of person! Not sure I’d be able to do that either!
Hi Devon!
There’s a name that stands out to me from our time together in the 2017-2018 MYP cohort at UBC! I hope you and the family have been doing well since then. Coming back to Canada now after a solid 4 years abroad must be quite an adjustment, especially when considering how turbulent things were in China with the pandemic. Looking forward to hearing your ideas this semester.
Hey David!
Saw your introduction page and was going to say hi but you beat me to it. Looks like your family situation has evolved since last we spoke.
Things have gone ok, considering the general state of the world the last few years.