Paul Stacey

The last time I was in Victoria, British Columbia I did an end of day run along the beautiful paths bordering Dallas Road. Running through Holland Point Park to Clover Point the path curved along seaside cliffs overlooking the Juan de Fuca Strait where I always enjoy the ocean wind and sound of the waves.

This path goes by Mile Zero demarcating the start of The Trans-Canada Highway. Running from Victoria British Columbia to St. John’s Newfoundland The Trans-Canada Highway is the world’s longest national highway with a length of 7,821 km (4,860 mi.) Thought I’d start this blog at Mile Zero and invite you along for a journey stretching across the edtech landscape.

For a lot of people educational technology is specifically online learning but I think of it more broadly as encompassing the use of technology for all aspects of an educational experience. Certainly teaching and learning are at the heart of it but technology is used for other things such as – applying for admission, registering, paying fees, library services, etc., in short all the surrounding services that accompany the teaching and learning experience itself. For me educational technology cuts across this entire swath.

The BC Educational Technology Users Group (ETUG) spring workshop is coming up this June and I submitted a presentation – “Architecting EdTech – Integrating Personal Learning Environments, Enterprise Systems, Shared Application Services, and Cloud Computing”. It’s a mouthful of a title but is intended to portray the breadth of educational technology.

I’m developing the presentation now starting with an EdTechArchitecture diagram I created last year.

Have a look at the diagram and leave a comment with your thoughts.
For my presentation I want to help participants:

• identify and define major structural components of post-secondary information technology systems
• differentiate between elements of the architecture that are the responsibility of the institution vs. those that (potentially) are not
• discuss the challenges of provisioning educational technology solutions within post-secondary
• assess the pros and cons of in-house provision, shared service provision, and cloud computing
• design an edtech architecture based on a template that integrates PLE’s, enterprise systems, shared application services, and cloud computing

I’ll post more on this as it develops but thought I’d kick off this blog with this big picture idea.

Just a quibble – the Strait along Dallas Road at Clover Point is the Juan de Fuca. On clear days you can see the Olympic Mountain range and at night the lights of Port Angeles, WA only 37 kms across the water. It’s gorgeous isn’t it? I was running along there when I decided I had to move to the West Coast, nearly five years ago.

Comment by Tori April 21, 2010 @ 2:28 pm

Thanks for orienting me Tori.
I just looked at the chart I have of Vancouver Island and see that yes indeed I should have said Juan de Fuca Strait not Georgia Strait.
I’ve corrected it in my post and yes it really is a magnificent trail and view.
I like the way the trail is a social amalgam of dog walkers, kite flyers, runners, and people just out for a stroll.
I can see how the view with the cliffs, the ocean, boats, islands and in the far distance the Olympic Mountain range could call you and make you decide to move to the West Coast.
Hope you’re still enjoying the run on a regular basis.

Paul

Comment by Paul Stacey April 21, 2010 @ 5:14 pm

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