A personal view of e-learning at the University of British Columbia

The Irving K. Barber Learning Centre (home of OLT)

It’s now seven years since I resigned as Director of Distance Education and Technology at UBC, and my motto has always been ‘Never look back.’ However, two things came together to bring me back to UBC last week with a ‘formal’ invitation for [...]

An e-portfolio approach to measuring competencies

Pereira, A. et al. (2009) Evaluating continuous assessment quality in competence-based education online: the case of the e-folio EURODL, December 9

The paper, from researchers at the Open University of Portugal, proposes two main types of instruments to be used in undergraduate fully online courses: e-folios and p-folios. The e-folio “is a short digital document elaborated [...]

Old mantras instead of new thinking

Tolley, R. (2010) A New Year – but Old Mantras? e-Folio in the UK, January 3

In an excellent diatribe from the UK, Roy Tolley comments on the curse of old thinking when using new technology, or as he more eloquently puts it:

‘Transformative change’ is not so much about the use of contemporary technology [...]

Reigning in costs with online learning

Bassis, M. (2009) Reigning in college costs Businessweek, December 21

This is a useful article, from the President of Westminster College, Salt Lake City, to give to your administration to get more support for online learning. I liked particularly his description of how the college business school uses a competency-based approach and e-portfolios within an online [...]

Six priorities for Canadian e-learning in 2010

© Wikipedia

Summary of my priorities

1. A requirement for all newly appointed full-time instructors in public Canadian post-secondary educational institutions to have a formal certification in teaching in post-secondary education, to be in place by September 2012. This would include both pedagogical and technological content. Probability: <1%

2. Establishment of at least one hybrid [...]