Hello fellow learning venture students and learning facilitators. This is my eighth MET course and the end is in sight but I do not find myself in a hurry to end this experience other then the timeline as I feel this is a lifelong learning development. I continue to be optimistic that I will be able to integrate the experiences I have had in the MET program to meet and motivate the increasingly diverse learning needs of my students. My main challenge continues to be finding time to develop my skills but then again who doesn’t. I live on Vancouver Island in a place called Mill Bay and I teach courses at the secondary school in Duncan. Currently they are Sci and Tech 11, First Nations 12, Planning 10 and remedial math. I look forward to working with you all through this course. Mark Reed

I really had to  try and add some text to my post as I was a bit tire last night and was having some trouble trying to understand why the text was  not appearing. These technical learning curves seems to be the theme of my MET experience as my pictue moves across the screen and I am not sure what I am typing thank goodness for spell check. Anyway I did not want to  portray myself as too much of a minimalist although as our professors have pointed out succinct is great. I added some details to my profile but I am not sure where others would access this. I have enjoyed reading everyone’s introductions and am impressed with the caliber of of the experience members in this learning community have. Well on to next week thanks for your patience.

Well it looks like everyone is finding the place to post entries to the ETEC 522 course blog. That’s excellent.

There are a few more students still to come and I expect we’ll see their introductory posts shortly.

A few reminders:

Last call for module group preferences. Let us know if you have a preference for a working group for Modules 4 -11. On Friday evening (Pacific Daylight Time), I’ll post a list of module groups based on preferences we’ve received, with the remaining students grouped to balance team sizes, etc.

Please also remember to think about Categories and Tags as you create your posts. Getting into that pattern now will help us all to find specific posts for review using the tag cloud and search tool downstream. You can also go back in and edit your posts to add tags or specify categories.

Also consider whether a “feed reader” (RSS aggregator) will suit you as a means for quickly reading and scanning posts. I wrote a short blog entry outlining the potential, and…

You can find other announcements from your instructors in the Announcements category in the right-side column.

Keep us posted on any questions you have, and especially ones that might be helpful to all. We can put those questions and answers in the Q/A category.

My name is Barbara Mair, this is my first ETEC course. I am very excited about the course although i am a little nervous because it has been  a long time since i was a student. Unlike many of  you i am  living in the business world, mainly management, sales and marketing. I want to learn more about the academic world. I am launching hybrid (online/onsite) training for teachers in Mexico, hopefully helping them integrate technology into the classroom.  I am looking forward to working with you and learning from you

Hi everyone,

My name is Amy Frank. I live in Calgary, Alberta with my husband, two sons, and dog. We are actually expecting baby #3 at the end of this course! I started this program after having my first son, so it seems fitting that I will finish the program during my third sons first year. The beauty of this program is that I can actually have small children, be pregnant, work full-time, and still “attend” class. Love it. This is my ninth course. Due to the expected arrival of my third baby, I will be taking January to March off, so convocation will have to wait until Fall 2010.

My family (I am the only girl)

I am very excited about this course, as it seems to fit with my interests more than most of the other courses I have completed. Unlike many of you, I am not a formal teacher. My interests in learning technologies began when I was working for a market research company. I was looking for a change and, since I had HTML knowledge, they asked me to start designing training for our clients. In the beginning I only knew how to create basic web design and technical writing. I started taking continuing education courses through the University of Calgary and Mount Royal in online documentation and e-learning. I was hooked at that point. I was working with some well-known Fortune 500 companies, and my company was allowing me the flexibility and resources to make some changes to how we delivered our online training. Unfortunately, venture capatalist companies, like the one I was working for, tend to put money into the areas that are “hot” and demanded by clients. As soon as the economy changed and a couple clients decided to discontinue working with us, my team also stop receiving funding to make changes. This meant my fun ended. However, this is also when I found out about this program and found a new job. I am currently working for AlbertaHealth Services (previously the Calgary Health Region). I work as e-Learning Developer in the Patient Care Information Services department. We develop e-learning modules used to train clinical staff on the various patient care applications.  As the various regions merge, there is a push to align patient care applications and start developing provincial training platforms.  I am hoping this drive towards e-records will open more opportunities for our group. In the future, I hope to continue working in business.

When I am not working, I am spending time with my kids. I would like to say that I have a number of hobbies and activities going on,but with two kids, 3 and 1, with another on the way, I am just happy to sit on the couch for the last hour of the day. J I will get some hobbies in two – three years.

I look forward to this semester and having a chance to work with all of you!

 Amy

Hello,

My name is Cathy Jung. I live in Markham, Ontario. I work for Canadian Automobile Association (CAA) as the Manager of Business and Technical Training. I am responsible for employee learning and development on a wide range of topics (product knowledge, corporate policies and procedures, sales and service, computer systems…). I also have an ESL teaching background and have taught newcomers to Canada and international students. 

I have an Honours Bachelor of Arts and a Certificate in Teaching English as a Second Language from the University of Toronto and have completed a Diploma in Adult Education from University of BC. 

ETEC 522 is my sixth course in the program. My professional interests surround workplace learning and technologies to support employee learning and development. Some of my personal interests include traveling, reading and scrapbooking.

I look forward to working with all of you in ETEC 522.

 Cathy

Hello. I have just started the MET TBDL program. In addition to taking this course I am also currently taking ETEC 512. For the past eight years I have been teaching philosophy at a university level, at first with the University of North Dakota and the University of Minnesota, and more recently with Athabasca University. I completed my PhD in philosophy from the University of Calgary last year. I am looking forward to taking this course as it will be very different from my previous studies.

Greetings all,

I am looking forward to the 7th and 8th courses this fall, and can’t wait to learn more about this topic.

I live on a lovely Niagara horse farm, and have many irons in the fire in addition to the MET program.

I started into educational  digital media in 1993, and have since been lucky enough to be involved in many facets of project management, design, and development on disc, in print, and online. I have been a consultant since ’96, and am currently the online editorial manager for a public-facing website for the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association. I also coach communication skills for veterinary students in f2f labs, and do clinical practice to pay the bills (MET tuition and such). I am currently an online instructor for University of Guelph, for Equine Nutrition, and have recently been involved in extensive course updates. I write for popular magazines, and have recently finished work on a couple of textbooks. I have also been a medical dictionary and popular press book editor.

For one project, I was involved as a manager for a group in the US. They developed a large website with many thousands of interfaces and the first online publishing template system. They did the project with millions in VC support (and they did the dotcom crash)

MUGSHOT

I learned a lot from that experience about venturing into the world of very large web development projects.

Our family enjoys time at the cottage and skiing, and in my spare time, I enjoy photography and acrylic painting (what spare time may you ask?). My children are 21 and 16, and the light of my life.

Looking forward to getting to know all of you online this semester,

may the wind always be at your back,

Kathleen