Submitted by Bonnie Johnston
I’m an Instructional Development Consultant in the Learning and Teaching Centre at BCIT. E-learning has a huge role at BCIT and we are one of the largest distance learning institutions in the country.
We use the learning management system Brightspace and we have recently transitioned from using Bongo, a video conferencing tool included with our Brightspace license, to Class for Teams. This transition is concurrent with the institution’s move away from Zoom as our non-teaching web conferencing to the use of MS Teams. Class for Teams has proven to have quite a learning curve, even for old hands who’re experienced with Elluminate, Collaborate, and BlueJeans, and the Educational Technologies group within the LTC is rolling out an extensive training plan for faculty and staff this fall.
We continue to be impressed with our instructors’ uptake with integrating our institutionally-supported educational technology tools into their teaching, and credit the pandemic for the massive upskilling effort. We have implemented Kaltura recently and approach its use with a DIY-mindset that has served us well in reaching BCIT’s 1600+ instructors. However, we are finding that we are not only supporting instructors migrate their videos from other locations (eg. Vimeo) and produce new videos with Kaltura, but also having to remind them of the availability of this institutionally-supported site. Old workflows can be hard to let go.
Like everyone, we scrambled to be ready for AI. Our Educational Technology and Learning Design Committee (which reports to our Educational Council) has provided guidance in the form of BCIT’s Official Position on Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) while a cross-institutional working group created the handy, An Introduction to Generative AI and Teaching with AI LibGuide to support instructors.
We have also recently launched a credit-based faculty development initiative, the Associate Certificate in Polytechnic Teaching, and it includes two courses, Teaching with Educational Technology, and a revamp of our popular non-credit workshop, Fostering Learning Online, to a full 12 week experiential learning experience, POLY 1025. We take the approach that teaching with educational technologies is the new norm. Looking ahead, the institution will be launching the development of a new Education Plan, and we are excited about we can best support learning and teaching in the future.