Bonjour de Montréal

Hi everyone,

My name is Melissa Ayers and I am a New Zealander currently based in Montreal. I am relatively new to the education and educational technology domains (aside from 4 completed MET courses). My background is more technology related; I have a degree in Computer Science and have worked as a software engineer for around 10 years.

However, over the last 12 months I have taken a slight detour from the software engineering profession and have been working as a volunteer for a small French NGO, Passerelles numériques (PN). PN runs an IT vocational training school in Phnom Penh, Cambodia where I was responsible for managing their Web Development Program. This primarily involved managing a team of 6 Web trainers, reviewing the curriculum and liaising with local web development companies to ensure our training provided the skills they needed. It is a great project and I thoroughly enjoyed my time working with the students and staff in Phnom Penh.

With the PN Web Development Trainers

Common form of Cambodia transport during the rainy season: en route to a social investigation interview with a potential PN student

I have now returned to Montreal to continue my MET degree. The reason I choose to take 522 is as a non-teacher I am very interested in discovering if I can bring together my technical background with my interest in educational technology to find future work opportunities. I believe learning about emerging markets and completing 522 is a great place to start!

Kind regards to all and I look forward to interacting and working with everyone over the coming weeks.

 

Posted in: Week 01: Introductions