Wednesday July 26, 2006 Bette Gray

Bette was a great speaker and her presentation on where the Government of Alberta is going with the ICT initiative was interesting. A different perspective is always helpful when looking at both sides of an issue. It is nice to see that there is a lot of thought going into the integration of technology within the school curriculum. I do think that the post secondary institutions have a lot more freedom when it comes to technology in education but if your coordinator is not interested in implementing the changes, you have very little hope of acquiring the equipment. We are also restrained by the lack of enthusiasm within departments with instructors not willing to change so pushing for new initiatives takes a lot of work. I am hoping to find some ways to encourage other staff to experiment with some tools to enhance the courses they already teach and for me to teach an e-commerce course in a totally different way. Good luck, I say.