ETUG 2015-16 Year in Review
This post contributed by Jason Toal (SFU, SCETUG Chair), Janine Hirtz (UBC Okanagan, SCETUG Vice-Chair), Leva Lee (BCcampus, ETUG Community Steward), and Emily Schudel (Camosun College,Past Vice-Chair and ETUG NEWS Editor)
Read all about it!
Highlights from the last year include our Fall Workshop 2015, and the Spring 2016 Festival of Learning which was an unprecedented province wide collaboration of educators, leaders and professionals hosting a four day conference, bringing together colleagues from many BC postsecondary communities!
Other big news for our community is the changing of the guard that took place over the summer. We want to extend a huge thank you to kele fleming for her unprecedented four year service as ETUG’s Stewardship Committee (SCETUG) Chair!
We welcome Jason Toal (Chair) and Janine Hirtz (Vice-chair) to their new roles as Chair and Vice-chair respectively. Jason and Janine are both long time members and have served on the committee for a number of years. They are very much looking forward to serving our community, and one of their many goals in the coming year will be to work closely with institutional representatives, and build further collaborations with our members.
2015 Stewards PLANNING DAY
In November, The stewardship committee met for a full day of planning. Click for planning day notes.
FALL & SPRING WORKSHOPS REVIEWS
Our two part Fall program had an ‘open spaces’ theme. Here is some feedback regarding the plenary on the UdG Agora project:
- “Absolutely loved hearing about the innovation and collaboration in [the Agora] project with JIBC, TRU, U of Guadalajara. Makes me think there are many other opportunities across institutions that we start building on.”
The ‘unconference’ Part 2 of the program also received great reviews:
- [UnConference format ] – “Loved the starter session by Michelle from BCIT who modelled the approach and informality of the unconference (IMHO). Enjoyed the willingness of people to step forward and offer something or, even more unusual (for me) was the lady who stepped up and said what she wanted to learn about and asked who would/could lead a session on that topic.”
In Spring 2016, we joined forces with educators, leaders and professional staff involved in teaching and learning in BC to offer the first ever Festival of Learning! The blockbuster four day conference was the first in our efforts to more formally partner with postsecondary educators across the province to provide professional development.
ETUG NEWS
The ETUG News continues to capture stories of innovation from our members all year long! We currently have over 500 subscribers to The ETUG News! The newsletter comes to your inbox each month and features upcoming events of interest to our membership, job postings, member and institutional highlights, as well as news regarding initiatives and innovation in our province around educational technology, OER, Open textbooks, etc.
We would like to take this opportunity to thank Emily Schudel (Past Vice-chair of SCETUG) for her work as Vice-chair and her continued commitment as the Editor of the ETUG News and as a valued Stewardship Committee member.
T.E.L.L. SESSIONS
We continued with our monthly roster of T.E.L.L sessions focusing on a diversity of topics and facilitated by a number of members. The T.E.L.L. sessions are a great way to find out what edtech experiments are taking place at institutions across the province. Click here for information on past T.E.L.L. sessions.
MEMBERSHIP
We are proud to say that our membership has grown to over 500 members with participation from individuals coming each of the BC public postsecondary institutions. We would like to introduce you to this year’s Stewardship Committee and Institutional ETUG Reps! We have already been hard at work getting ready for our Fall gathering— “Little (Work) Shop of Horrors: Tales of Fails and Edtech Experiments” —on October 28th, 2016 hosted at the Centre for Digital Media, Vancouver.
UPCOMING
The year started off with an all day meeting in August, where new Stewardship Chair, Jason Toal, SFU and Vice-Chair, Janine Hirtz, UBC with ETUG Community Steward, Leva Lee of BCcampus, Professional Learning. We identified a few projects to address this coming year with the help of the committee including: defining leadership roles, augmenting the that of the Institutional reps, reaching out to better connect with our membership and getting the word out about our community to new participants, as well as, strengthening partnerships with all postsecondary stakeholders in BC.
FALL WORKSHOP – hold the date!
The date is set – hold Friday, October 28th for the fall conference ‘spooktacular event’ and we predict (and hope for) a submission from you to our current Call for Proposals!
Thank you for your membership and your participation this past year and we predict a wonderful year ahead!
(image free to use from: https://pixabay.com/en/psychics-crystal-ball-fortune-teller-1026092/ )