BCcampus EdTech Demos Webinar Series

Contributed by Clint Lalonde, BCcampus
In the fall of 2016, BCcampus began a new series called EdTech Demos. EdTech Demos are free online webinars coordinated by BCcampus to provide information about new and emerging educational technologies in order to help BC post-secondary institutions make smart decisions about educational technologies. This year, BCcampus hosted nine such demos, showcasing a variety of both open-source and commercial educational technologies.
The series kicked off with an online demo of the Canvas LMS by Instructure, highlighting some of the ways that Canvas integrates and connects to other learning technologies. We also hosted EdTech Demos from commercial learning technology companies D2L and MapleSoft. D2L demonstrated some of its learning analytics products, while MapleSoft featured different technologies that help deliver STEM content to learners.
In addition to commercial vendors, BCcampus also hosted a number of EdTech Demos showcasing open-source products and technologies:

• H5P is an open-source plugin for WordPress, Moodle, and Drupal developed by Joubel in Norway that adds numerous HTML5 interactive learning elements to those platforms.
• GRAV is a static web publishing platform that was demoed by SFU’s Paul Hibbitts.
• The Hypothesis demo from Dr. Jeremy Dean showcased some of the different ways in which the web annotation tool can be used in the classroom.
• We also took a look at ELMS-LN, a Drupal-based Next Generation Digital Learning Environment (NGDLE) developed at Penn State University.

We also had the opportunity to showcase some edtech products and technologies developed at BC institutions, such as the WordPress plugin FieldPress, created by UBC’s Geography department to coordinate field work among Geography faculty and students. And, Kevin Stranack of the Public Knowledge Project at SFU showed Open Journal System and Open Monograph Press, used to support Open Pedagogy work by students.
The EdTech Demo series is taking the summer off, but will be kicking off again this fall with demos of a number of interesting technologies. For example, we’ll take a closer look at personalized learning with Lumen Learning’s Waymaker platform, and we’ll host a demo on developing accessible learning materials for students with learning disabilities using Ally, as well as many others.
While these demos are targeted at people within the BC post-secondary system, they are open to all who wish to attend. To be notified of upcoming EdTech Demos, sign up to the email notification system. You can also access recordings of previous EdTech Demos.
If you have a suggestion for a technology that you would like to see demonstrated as part of this series, please contact Clint Lalonde at BCcampus (clint@bccampus.ca).