John graduated from Memorial University of Newfoundland with a Bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and a Master’s degree in Ocean Engineering. His work experience includes the oil industry as well as government, but he went to the Marine Institute from the Faculty of Engineering. He now teaches mechanical engineering courses in the School of Maritime Studies as well as the Bachelor of Technology. For the past 10 years he has been working and publishing on the development and application of e-learning technologies and methods. John is a recipient of the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching at Memorial University, the granting of this award being based largely on courses he delivers using technologies like the Möbius Platform. In our latest podcast, John chats with Jim Cooper, CEO of DigitalEd, about how to implement online education in a heavily-regulated industry.
The Future of Digital Education
A collection of podcasts and blog posts discussing the role of technology in education
Matt
Implementation is one of the most underestimated, yet crucial steps in ensuring the effectiveness of education technology in the classroom. As many education leaders know, there’s a lot of room for error when it comes to successful education technology implementation. In order to avoid those pitfalls, there is a series of critical steps that must be taken to ensure this process ultimately provides value by making the end user’s job easier, not more difficult.
Despite the best intentions and planning, education technology implementations often do not deliver the anticipated value. The three large predictors that an implementation failure include: the lack to review the school’s entire edtech ecosystem, such as buying computers without considering software licensing or network load; failing to have a complimentary change management program in place that involves all appropriate stakeholders, such as the managers and users of the technology; and not critically reviewing implementation outcomes, continuously tweaking the process to specifically shape it to address unmet needs.
In the conclusion of our 2-part podcast, Meta Keijzer-de Ruijter and Jim Cooper discuss what analytics can and should be measured in.
Meta Keijzer-de Ruijter sits down with Jim Cooper, President and CEO of Maplesoft and DigitalEd, to discuss strategies to bring education to everyone.
The key to student engagement is teaching in a way that students love. However, reaching each student successfully depends on being able to provide a personalized learning path, one that accommodates the needs of learners at all levels. More and more schools and districts are moving towards adopting some form of education technology, to address the needs of teachers and students alike. However, the next gen EdTech is a K-12 LMS (learning management system) that enables teachers to do their work in a highly optimized way. Here are a few ways that a K-12 LMS can help reach students in a personalized way.
Dr. Matthew Demers discusses using an adaptive testing strategy and the gamification of online education with Maplesoft and DigitalEd CEO Jim Cooper.
Dr. Paul Woolner talks with Dr. Jim Cooper, CEO of DigitalEd, about the potential of educational technology. In the second part of their conversation below, Paul and Jim discuss how and why to collect data from instructional technology.
Listen as Dr. Steve Furino, Assistant Dean of Online Studies at the University of Waterloo discusses how to analyze the data collected in instructional technology platforms with Dr. Jim Cooper. In the second part of their discussion below, Steve and Jim talk about DigitalEd, the new digital education spinoff company from Maplesoft.
Educators have always known that different students in their classes have different needs. One of their biggest challenges is how to meet the individual needs of each student while facing the inevitable constraints of time, money, and resources. If a student fails to learn one idea properly, it will have a large impact on their future learning, but with large classes and many concepts to teach, how can an instructor ensure that their students understand?
Dr. Matthew Demers joins Jim Cooper to discuss technology’s role in accommodating for large and small class sizes.
Dr. Matthew Demers is an assistant professor at the University of Guelph. After completing his Ph.D. in mathematics in 2012, he was hired at the University of Guelph as a teaching-focused professor within the School of Engineering and received a grant with the goal of transforming the delivery of two major first-year calculus courses. Currently under the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, he instructs many very large undergraduate classes centering on calculus and differential equations for physical science and engineering students. Dr. Demers has received many accolades for his contributions to the university, being voted “Professor of the Year” by engineering students in five consecutive years, and being recognized with the prestigious “Innovation in Teaching” award by the University of Guelph Faculty Association in 2016. In the first installment of this 2-part podcast, Dr. Demers talks with Maplesoft CEO Jim Cooper about scaling instructional technology to work with different class sizes.
