The best laid schemes of mice and men

Eight months ago I started this blog with the intention of writing something at least once every week. I had just finished my Bachelors of Education and had very little to do. The education program at the University of Ottawa was a tremendous learning experience but the job market was depressing (and probably still is for some). New, excited and innovative people were graduating the program with a lot of passion but with very few opportunities here in Canada.

If you were lucky, then you would have landed an occasional teaching job. Occasional teaching means you sit beside the phone and be “on-call” whenever the schools need you. This could be early in the morning (so we’re talking 5 to 6 AM). Once you do get the call, your job is to take attendance, manage behaviour and make sure students are doing the work that was assigned to them. To understand how difficult this is… take a moment to remember the things you or your classmates used to do when your regular teacher wasn’t around. Going from occasional to long-term occasional, then to part-time, and then to full-time teaching could take years and it’s a very informal process.

So making a dent in the system and improving education is easier said than done. My goal wasn’t to just get a job; my goal was to be an outstanding educator and to bring a meaningful learning experience to as many students as possible. I wanted to be helping students discover what they’re passionate about and providing them with the guidance they needed to succeed.

In July, I received an offer from eSchool to teach an online grade 12 chemistry class. These courses are self-paced, starting when the student signs up and ending when the student has taken the final exam. One of my first few students was in danger of losing her acceptance to university because of a low average. I received a desperate email from the parents asking me if I could help their daughter get through a make-up course (58 hours of work) in about 2 weeks. She did it but I had to work pretty much full time to keep up. My reward - $110, a great story, and the satisfaction that I helped someone not only learn a lot but also bypass probably the biggest crisis of their life so far. I have been teaching for about 9 months, so I have many more stories but they’ll have to wait for now.

In September I got the opportunity to help eSchool in their main office; I was hired to create courses, ensure that all courses meet Ministry of Education requirements, and be involved with the technical infrastructure at the school. This experience has been a valuable one; I learned that:

  • Technology is very expensive and there are a lot of predators who take advantage of non-technical administrators to make a lot of money. So technical projects are tightly budgeted, take a very long time to approve and their scope is usually not very ambitious. A lean/agile technical project can only work if everyone involved is tech-savvy and/or not scarred by countless previous failed tech projects.
  • Building an outstanding curriculum is not only challenging but it’s also time consuming and expensive. If people are not compensated well then they might be tempted to take shortcuts. I was guilty of this, and I like to think of myself as the charitable kind.
  • Projects will expand to fill the time that is allotted to them. When we were pressed by a looming deadline (like a Ministry Inspection date) then we got things done. If someone was given an indefinite time to build a course then it was never built.
  • Building anything remarkable requires full commitment from everyone involved. You can do a good job with people who are partly committed, but it takes exponentially more commitment to get from good to remarkable.

While being an instructor, course developer and technologist, I was also immersed in massive open online courses (MOOCs) during my spare time. I completed:

2012 was “the year of the MOOC” and I’m so glad I was a part of it! The e-learning experience was phenomenal - the content top-notch and the instructors world class. The Coursera classes excelled for me personally because they involved peer-assessment and had great forums. MOOCs have a long way to go but they are already filling a major need.

My plan for this summer is to take a break from teaching and take the time to improve my technical skills. I want a better understanding of developers and the tech industry, I want to make some key connections in the Canadian tech world and ultimately be an advocate for educators. I want to become a professional developer who can speak for teachers and make sure solid pedagogical principles are used to develop edtech tools.

My passion for education and technology might take me in many directions. Who knows what the future has in store for us…