Tag: education

Learning about photography for #3SkillsYEG

I’ve had a digital camera (many, actually) for as long as I can remember. You know those really old Casio digital cameras that produced super grainy, low resolution photos? Yep, had one. Today my primary camera is a Canon 6D, which is a full-frame DSLR. It produces incredible photos, technically speaking. But as any “intro to photography” book or course will tell you, it’s not the gear that produces great photos, it’s the photographer. The hardware has changed an incredible amount since the advent of digital photography, but the principles of taking better photos have changed much less. Like most people, I never really learned those principles. I picked some stuff up by watching other photographers of course, like my Dad whose work I really admire. But mostly my strategy has been “spray and pray”. Take lots of photos and hope for the best. I decided to change that for the “Creativity & Expression” theme during #3SkillsYEG.

Cloverdale Footbridge
Me taking a photo on the Cloverdale Bridge last summer

Obviously there are dozens and dozens of resources for learning more about photography through EPL. I decided to narrow it down to digital resources, and it wasn’t long before I stumbled across the amazing content available through Lynda.com. It’s truly amazing that Edmontonians have free access to this incredible resource with a free library card. I still can’t get over it, to be honest!

Photography is one of the top-level categories at Lynda.com so there’s definitely a lot of content to choose from. There are 643 courses and 28,488 video tutorials related to photography, to be exact.

“Whether you want to be a photographer or just love taking pictures, learn what you need with our in-depth courses in photography: how to shoot photos that tell a story, choose the right gear, create a photo book, and more. Get tips on photo editing, studio photography, and lighting, too.”

Here are the courses I completed:

I also skimmed through parts of a course on Lightroom, which I am using to edit and organize photos. Even with just those five courses, I learned a ton. I now have a good idea of how much I don’t know! I especially enjoyed the videos with Ben Long and was very happy to see that he has a weekly show on Lynda.com called The Practicing Photographer. I found his style very approachable and well-paced. At one point he shares that he used to get asked a lot what type of photos he likes to take – landscape, portraits, etc. He reflected on it and decided that he likes to photograph light. That really stuck with me.

Here are some of my favorite photos that I took while working through the videos:

Spring Snow
One of the first photos I took with my new 50mm prime lense

Peace Bridge
Always love the Peace Bridge in Calgary

Sunset Reflected Downtown
Experimented with stitching photos together here, using ICE

Morning Sunlight
I had Ben Long’s comment about shooting light in my head for this one

Victoria Promenade
An example of crouching down to get a better shot

Flying over the old Molson Brewery
Good timing, but also I like the color contrast

High Level Bridge
Another example of changing my perspective to get a different shot

I have started on my next course already, Foundations of Photograpy: Composition. After that, I’ll move on to the other videos in the Foundations of Photography series, including Black and White, Night and Low Light, and Flash.

If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time you’ll know that I am a sucker for gadgets. So it was a little dangerous to dive further into a topic like photography where you can spend thousands of dollars on gear! I did pretty well though, and ended up only making a few purchases. The biggest was the Canon 50mm f/1.8 STM, my first prime lens and a great deal at just $170 or so. I also picked up a lens cleaning kit, and a few accessories from Peak Design to go with my messenger bag.

I have really enjoyed learning more about photography and working to improve my skills and I look forward to continuing it with the resources available through EPL! The #3SkillsYEG campaign is over for 2016 (I’m way behind on posting this) but that shouldn’t stop you from learning about something that interests you! If you need an excuse, remember that we’re a City of Learners!

NorQuest’s downtown expansion rises

Two more cranes joined the downtown skyline recently as construction on NorQuest’s new Singhmar Centre for Learning heats up. The new facility will be located immediately north of the current NorQuest campus along 103 Avenue between 107 Street and 108 Street (Capital Boulevard). It’s the first major project for NorQuest in roughly 50 years, and when it opens in 2017 it will bring enrollment in the college to over 12,500 students with the goal of doubling the current student population to 20,000 by 2025.

NorQuest Construction

The Province is contributing $170 million to the project, with another $15 million coming through NorQuest’s Maximizing Opportunities campaign. That campaign received a major boost in November when Dr. Prem Singhmar and Dr. Saroj Singhmar contributed $2.5 million to the project, which is where the name came from.

NorQuest Construction

The details are subject to change of course, but current plans would see 24 classrooms, 24 labs, and 3 “flex” classrooms built in the new facility. It would become the college’s main academic building and will serve students studying in a variety of subjects, everything from health care to English as a second language. The Singhmar Centre will also feature a daycare, a new library, food services, and plenty of meeting and activity space. Underground you’ll find parking for about 100 vehicles and 75 bicycles.

NorQuest Singhmar Centre for Learning

The existing main building isn’t going anywhere but will be receiving significant renovations, slated to be complete in 2018. The smaller Health Education Centre building on the corner of 102 Avenue and 107 Street will be demolished at some point after the expansion opens. When the entire project is done, it’ll offer not only important new learning space for NorQuest students, but also plenty of publicly accessible green space too. It’s great to see another giant downtown parking lot disappear!

Expectations for a modern college

The existing downtown campus opened in 1971, when both educators and students had very different expectations than they do today. The new campus should help NorQuest to keep up-to-speed with the changing technology requirements (and knowledge) of its students and staff.

NorQuest Singhmar Centre for Learning

About 89% of students have a smartphone, 52% use a tablet, and 95% have access to high speed Internet, and those numbers are only going up. Lots of students choose NorQuest in order to prepare for their careers, which these days always involves technology. I’m looking forward to learning more about what technology features the building will have.

A diverse student population

Based on the 2013-2014 academic year, about 75% of NorQuest students are from the Edmonton region, but 60% were born outside of Canada, representing around 90 countries. There are nearly 70 languages spoken on the NorQuest campus!

NorQuest Singhmar Centre for Learning

Approximately 11% of NorQuest’s student population are Aboriginal (First Nations, Metis, or Inuit ancestry). That’s one of the reasons why the college is so excited about the Aboriginal ceremonial room that the new campus will feature. The centrally-located and inviting room will be overseen by one of NorQuest’s elders-in-residence.

As Edmonton’s Aboriginal population continues to grow, NorQuest is looking forward to contributing to the success of that community. They recently launched a two-year pilot project in conjunction with Bow Valley College to help more than 600 Aboriginal people train for careers in the construction industry.

Connected to the LRT

With the Valley Line LRT slated to run right up 107 Street beside the campus with a stop just south of 104 Avenue, NorQuest will become connected by train to MacEwan, NAIT, and the University of Alberta.

As mentioned, NorQuest’s student population is very diverse. With a large number of newcomers, who NorQuest says typically rely on transit, being so close to the LRT will be key for remaining competitive in the future. In fact, 69% of NorQuest students cited “location” as an important factor in their decision making, and having the LRT there will make the decision that much easier.

A window into the construction

I believe the Singhmar Centre for Learning is one of the first downtown construction projects to feature the “E” window that was unveiled back in May. As you walk around the construction site under the scaffolding, you’ll find a series of E-shaped windows that let you peek into the construction activity happening on-site.

NorQuest Construction

You can follow along as construction of the Singhmar Centre for Learning progresses at the microsite. They’ve got a blog and are also on Twitter as @nqexpansion. As is the trend these days, NorQuest is working to create a timelapse of the construction so you can revisit the transformation once it is all done.

NorQuest is also celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2015 “with a year-long series of events and activities.”

UPDATE: Corrected to clarify that the Health Education Centre building will not remain as originally stated and will in fact be demolished.
UPDATE2: NorQuest has updated their microsite to say that the Province is providing $170 million, not $154 million as originally stated. I have updated the post accordingly.

What does Alberta’s Budget 2015 mean for Edmonton?

Today was budget day in Alberta. Budget 2015 is being called “a bad news budget” but it could have been much worse. There are tax and user fee increases, cuts to spending (including the first cut to health spending in 20 years), and a new “Health Care Contribution Levy”, and still Alberta’s deficit will grow, to a record $5 billion this year. On the other hand, infrastructure spending seems to be mostly intact, programs for the most vulnerable have not been cut, Alberta retains its tax advantage, and the Province is taking some baby steps toward getting us off the energy price roller coaster. Here is Dave’s take.

Budget 2015

There’s a lot of truth to the “government town” label that people often apply to Edmonton, so any Provincial cuts are going to have an impact. According to the City’s chief economist John Rose, 22% of Edmonton’s employment is related to health care, education, or public administration.

Still, Rose said in recent weeks that Edmonton as a whole would weather the storm better than others in Alberta. From his Labour Force Report issued on March 13:

“Although the impact of lower oil prices is evident in some sectors, the diversity and depth of
Edmonton’s economy has insured that employment continues to grow in Edmonton and that the
City remains a very attractive location for those seeking new opportunities.”

So what does Budget 2015 mean for Edmontonians and for Edmonton?

Highlights

Here are some of the key takeaways from the budget that I think are relevant to Edmonton:

  • For 2015-2016, Alberta Health Services (AHS) faces a decrease of $286 million or 2.1% and will need to cut nearly 1,700 positions
  • The budget includes $926 million in capital spending for health-related “capacity expansion projects” in Calgary and Edmonton
  • There is $50 million over at least two years to renovate emergency rooms in Calgary and Edmonton (specifically the Misericordia, Grey Nuns, and Royal Alexandra hospitals)
  • The budget promises than 300 new restorative care beds in Calgary and Edmonton
  • Post-secondary institutions face $114 million in cuts
  • Campus Alberta institutions (which includes the University of Alberta) are facing a 1.4% operating grant reduction in 2015-2016 and a 2.7% reduction in 2016-2017
  • School boards will receive no money for more students and must cut 3% from non-instructional costs
  • The Province says that “most” school projects announced in 2013 and early 2014 will open in 2016-2017
  • Family and Community Support Services, which helps to fund more than 60 agencies and 80 programs in Edmonton, will be maintained at $76 million.
  • Funding for police remains the same
  • Capital spending of $1.1 billion for the next 5 years includes $124 million for NAIT expansion and $120 million for NorQuest downtown
  • GreenTRIP funding remains intact, which means the first portion of the Valley Line LRT will continue to move ahead
  • MSI funding will remain stable, even if it is more of a loan than a grant
  • The smart fare proposal from Edmonton, St. Albert, and Strathcona County is still “under consideration”
  • The budget contains no funding for the proposed Galleria project

Discussion

Certainly the health care sector is going to take a hit and that will have some impact on Edmonton. The Province maintains that we can get the same quality of service for less, while critics disagree and suggest the effect of this budget won’t be felt only by those at AHS who lose their jobs but also by Edmontonians in need of care. “The time has come for us to start looking at how we can do things in a more efficient manner,” said Health Minister Stephen Mandel. “I don’t think Albertans should have to pay 20 and 30 per cent more for things.”

In addition to the cuts in health-related spending, the budget also introduces the Health Care Contribution Levy, which will apply to individuals with taxable income greater than $50,000 per year. There’s a sliding scale from $200 to $1000 depending on your income bracket. This tax takes effect on July 1, 2015, and applies to roughly 1.1 million Albertans.

The health-related surprise though was money for hospitals, especially given recent suggestions that Edmonton facilities need more than $225 million in maintenance and repairs. The previously announced funding for emergency room upgrades will help in that regard.

It’s not clear how many cuts the education sector will face, but clearly the 3% reduction is going to have an impact. A lack of new funds to deal with growth will likely also mean larger class sizes. At the post-secondary level the cuts are much smaller than many expected.

While there is no provincial sales tax, there are increases to personal income taxes. If you make more than $100,000 per year your tax rate will increase from 10% to 11.5% (phased in over three years) and if you earn more than $250,000 your tax rate will rise to 12% when fully implemented (Edmonton’s media family income is about $100,000). We know that nearly 10,000 employees of AHS earn at least $100,000 a year, which means if they aren’t among the job cuts, they will face increased personal income tax. Though it likely won’t be those who make the most that face the cuts. According to the Herald, Mandel’s own department will spend 18% more than last year.

For most Edmontonians, increased taxes, fines, and user fees will be felt immediately. Gas taxes are increasing by 4 cents to 13 cents per litre. Cigarette taxes are increasing by $5 to $45 for a carton of 200. A bottle of wine or spirits will cost 16 cents more, and a 12-pack of beer will cost 90 cents more. Fines for speeding and other traffic offences are increasing by an average of 35%. Marriage licenses are increasing by $10 as are birth and death certificates.

There is some good news for the most vulnerable Edmontonians. There will be no reductions to child care subsidies for low-income families, nor are there any reductions to the Alberta Seniors Benefit income support. The budget will also accommodate growth for AISH and Persons with Development Disabilities. Starting July 1, 2016 there will also be a new Alberta Working Family Supplement refundable tax credit on earnings up to $41,220. Funding for FCSS, which supports many Edmonton agencies, will be maintained.

On infrastructure there’s mostly good news. Or at least a sigh of relief that important projects will continue moving forward, like the Valley Line LRT which the Province previously committed to.

Responses to Budget 2015

From Mayor Don Iveson:

“The city of Edmonton and Alberta municipalities faired reasonably well on this budget, all things considered – certainly compared to what we all heard and were concerned might be coming,” Iveson said.

“The numbers are fairly small and speaking to our chief economist just now, it may have a small effect on Edmonton’s growth, but we’re talking a decimal to Edmonton’s GDP, not a side-swipe,” Iveson said.

“We can work with the dollars provided,” said Iveson.

From Doug Goss, char of the University of Alberta’s board of governors:

“The message is clear — we all have to find new ways of doing business, we have to be a little more creative,” said Goss.

From Indira Samarasekera, President of the University of Alberta:

“This is a very good outcome,” said Samarasekera, “much better than many were expecting. The provincial government is facing financial pressures, but they’ve demonstrated they understand the importance of post-secondary to Alberta’s future.”

President Samarasekera will address the campus community at a forum on March 31.

From Michael Janz, Edmonton Public School Board chair:

“We’re going to see more students arriving at the school doorsteps with no new money provided to educate them,” he said. “I don’t think this is a good news budget for Edmonton public schools.”

From Marilyn Bergstra, vice-chair of Edmonton Catholic Schools:

“The budget cuts will make it increasingly difficult to support all of our students, particularly our most vulnerable, as well as the new students that are coming to our district,” she said.

From Helen Rice, President of the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association (AUMA):

“Sufficient funding for infrastructure is vital to address the deficit that has continued to grow across the province, and to provide for new infrastructure requirements to meet our obligations to citizens,” said Rice.

“Given the current economic climate, now is the time to secure funding to meet infrastructure needs when prices are falling and the availability of resources to work on projects is increasing,” said Rice.

The reaction from the business community appears to be more mixed.

Budget 2015

Budget 2015 Details

Here are all the budget-related news releases:

Here is the budget presentation from Robin Campbell, Minister of Finance:

You can also download the budget speech in PDF here. You can access the full list of budget documents here.

Why does the University of Alberta want to be part of the Galleria project?

“The University has long desired to establish a significant campus in downtown Edmonton.”

That’s the first thing the Edmonton Downtown Academic and Cultural Centre (Galleria) business case from April 2013 identifies under opportunities and benefits for the University of Alberta. It sounds plausible, given the ongoing interest in revitalizing downtown and the University’s desire to play a role in the larger Edmonton community. But is it really true?

Here’s what columnist Paula Simons wrote in November 2001:

“Officially, a downtown campus isn’t an option. I’ve spoken to U of A President Rod Fraser, to University Provost Doug Owram, and to Jim Mitchell, the university’s vice-president of facilities. They all tell me it would be too expensive to build downtown, much more than developing land they already own in Garneau or southwest Edmonton. They say it would be too hard to find suitable space for labs and large lecture theatres. They say students and staff would feel isolated from campus life and facilities. They say it’s not their mandate to save downtown, but to serve the best interests of the U of A.”

That was around the time that the University of Alberta’s Long Range Development Plan (LRDP) was being developed (approved in 2002). It provides “a planning framework to accommodate and to guide physical development on University lands during the next thirty years.” Though it focuses on land and facilities that the University already owns, it does deal explicitly with the idea of a downtown campus:

ualberta lrdp

Though the plan has been amended a few times over the years, notably to incorporate Augustana Campus and most recently to incorporate updated plans for South Campus, that section has never been changed. “South Campus will accommodate much of the growth of the University of Alberta for the next thirty years” is what the most recent amendment says.

Even in 2005, when the University announced plans to buy the Hudson’s Bay building, it was not seen as a first step toward a larger campus in downtown or a change to previous plans. New President Indira Samarasekera said “the University of Alberta is a contributor to business, arts, and other sectors,” adding “we have an obligation to the community that we take seriously, and a downtown presence will build on that.” A few years later at the official opening of Enterprise Square, she said “that the University has finally crossed the river and found a place in the heart of the city is very significant” but also admitted that “it initially scared the heck out of me; we took a leap of faith.”

It was with some surprise then that Provost and Vice President Academic Dr. Carl Amrhein posted the following on the University of Alberta’s blog yesterday:

“The Galleria project is more than much-needed space for the University of Alberta—it is consistent with the university’s vision of an urban, linear campus connected by LRT where students, faculty and members of the public move freely around the city to access world-class teaching and research experiences offered at Edmonton’s post-secondary institutions. Imagine the vibrancy that 5,000 art, design and music students, faculty and staff will bring to the downtown core. Imagine the potential when students and professional artists interact through linkages with the Winspear, Citadel and Art Gallery of Alberta. The creative energy will be palpable!”

That seems to contradict not only statements by earlier University officials, but also the LRDP. Had the need for “an integrated campus environment” changed? Had the disadvantages about paying rent changed? Did student leaders now find a downtown location desirable? I reached out to Dr. Amhrein for clarification.

“There’s a technical point,” he told me, “which is that the Long Range Development Plan is concerned with real estate that the university owns and controls.” Given that the U of A would be leasing space inside the new Galleria project, it wouldn’t necessarily contradict the plan. He recognized the larger point however, and said “the argument for integrated locations is ease of mobility and the ability to move people around in a certain amount of time.” That’s where the LRT comes in.

Bay/Enterprise Square
Bay/Enterprise Square LRT Station, photo by Christopher Cotrell

“The feature that made Enterprise Square imaginable was the LRT,” Dr. Amrhein told me. “It meant that it was no more difficult to get from HUB to Enterprise Square than it was to get from HUB to South Campus.” He said the U of A’s first question then about the Galleria project was, “is there an LRT stop?” As both Churchill LRT Station and MacEwan LRT Station are close, the goal of an “urban, linear campus connected by LRT” is achieved at the Galleria, according to Dr. Amrhein.

In his blog post, Dr. Amrhein reiterated the University of Alberta’s key requirement for the Galleria:

“Yes, the university has identified climate-controlled access to the Galleria from the LRT as critical for our students, faculty and staff, and the patrons of the performances at the Galleria theatres and concert halls. A pedway is one solution, but there are others.”

He sounded annoyed that the pedway had become such a touch point in discussions about the Galleria. “The pedway is not a deal-breaker for the University,” he told me. Only “climate-controlled access” is a requirement. When I asked him to suggest alternatives to a pedway that could meet that requirement, initially he dodged the question. But asked a second time, he suggested the position of the buildings could provide the required access, citing the Telus towers and their connection to the LRT as an example. “Clever positioning with a plus fifteen would achieve the same result,” he said, noting that the project architects would have to rethink their plans to make that happen.

Dr. Amrhein told me the University requires climate-controlled access for three reasons. The first is the need to move faculty, staff, and students around campus in short periods of time. “When it’s dark and cold, there’s a disincentive to move around the facilities,” he said. The second is safety, which Dr. Amrhein said has been “completely lost in the conversation.” He stressed the importance of safety, saying that pedways are “well-lit and heated, and very visible” and that they often include security features. “There’s a personal safety issue here.” The third is accessibility of the performance venues for the community.

AuroraCollege_jm258
Dr. Carl Amrhein, photo by James MacKenzie

Back to the central question – why does the University of Alberta want to be part of the Galleria project? To answer that, Dr. Amrhein brought up Mayor Mandel and his vision to have all of Edmonton’s post-secondary institutions integrated and connected by LRT. “Imagine a medical student at NAIT,” Dr. Amrhein said. “That student can move from the classrooms at NAIT to the labs at the Walter MacKenzie Health Sciences Centre because of the LRT.” Integration across institutions like that would “put Edmonton in a very small group” of cities, Dr. Amrhein said.

It’s clear that Dr. Amrhein views the University’s participation in the Galleria project as something that will help Edmonton as a whole. “I hope it goes ahead.”

Coming up in April: Mayor’s Celebration of the Arts & Eat Alberta

I’m helping to organize a couple of events coming up in April that I wanted to tell you about. Tickets are going quickly for both events!

Eat Alberta

This is our fourth year for Eat Alberta, a one-day, workshop-style conference with a mix of hands on learning, food tastings, and demonstrations or presentations that focus on Alberta foods. The event takes place on April 26 in the kitchens at NAIT.

Here’s a video we did during last year’s event:

Tickets went on sale today for $150.00 each. Each ticket includes two plenary sessions, four workshops, breakfast, lunch, and a wine tasting. To ensure an equitable distribution of sessions (and to introduce you to something you might not have picked) we sell ten different tracks. I’m pretty excited about our lineup of sessions and presenters for this year.

Eat Alberta 2012

For more on Eat Alberta and what you can expect, check out Sharon’s post.

Mayor’s Celebration of the Arts

The 27th annual Mayor’s Celebration of the Arts is taking place on April 28 at the Winspear Centre. This year is of course the first event for Mayor Don Iveson. The event celebrates some of the best artistic talents our city has to offer with awards, and is packed full of amazing performances.

Mayor's Celebration of the Arts 2011

You can see the list of nominees for 2014 here. A total of 11 awards will be given out during the evening.

Tickets are on sale now with prices ranging from $15 to $80 depending on where you decide to sit. Each year the event supports a charitable organization in Edmonton, and this year we’re supporting the Music Enrichment Program. Stay tuned for details on the performances.

You can read my recap of last year’s event here. I joined the committee three years ago and I’m thrilled to still be playing a part in the event!

TEDxEdmonton Education: Discussing the evolution of learning in the City of Learners

Hundreds of Edmontonians will gather at the Winspear Centre on Saturday for a special TEDxEdmonton event focused on learning.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, join us for a special edition of TEDxEdmonton around a conversation on how learning is evolving and impacting our schools, workplaces and industries. We’ll come together to kickstart a discussion on learning among students, educators, entrepreneurs, artists, scientists, and community leaders. How do we disrupt the status quo and replace traditional approaches to learning? How do we leave the politics of education behind to focus on impact and innovation?

TEDxEdmonton Education is open to anyone interested in the topic, and will bring a number of intriguing speakers together for what should be a very inspiring day. You’ll hear from some local folks such as Ashlyn Bernier of the Graduate Students’ Association at the University of Alberta as well as some special guests from out-of-town like Stephanie Lo, Product Manager of TED’s Education initiative. The full line-up looks amazing!

tedxedmonton education

Education is a topic I have been thinking about a lot lately, mainly from two perspectives: technology and cities. I’m unfortunately going to be out of town on Saturday, but I wanted to share a few thoughts in advance of the event.

Massively Open Online Courses

It’s shocking to me that we, more or less, teach the same way today as we have for centuries, despite incredible advances in technology. A teacher or professor in front of dozens of students in a classroom is typically the image that comes to mind when we talk about teaching and learning. Is that really the best we can do?

I was inspired recently by Daphne Koller’s TED Talk in which she discusses the emerging trend toward online education. She’s a co-founder of Coursera, which is one of the popular new platforms for MOOCs – massively open online courses. Coursera, edX, and other platforms are enabling a really interesting new way of learning. Instead of a few hundred students in a classroom, these online courses bring potentially hundreds of thousands of students together from all over the world. There’s still a professor and there are still lectures (delivered via video on-demand) and there are still readings, but there’s a lot that is different too. For starters, they’re free!

Here is Daphne’s talk:

I decided to take a course to experience first-hand what a MOOC is like. I signed up for the Introduction to Sustainability, taught by Jonathan Tomkin from the University of Illinois. There are lots of reasons that people might take this course – maybe they’re looking for academic credit, maybe they’re looking to advance their careers, or maybe like me they are just interested in the topic. I admit I haven’t been keeping up with the course as well as I should have, but already I have gotten a lot out of it. One of the most interesting things to me is the “How to Pass the Class” page, which states:

I recognize that this is no ordinary course. You may have different perspectives and different goals for this course than some of your peers or than I could have anticipated. Therefore, I want to empower you to customize this course to meet your needs. To this end, I have designed multiple “badges” you can earn through participation in this course.

Here’s a look at those badges:

coursera pass the course

This is great! If you want to take the “traditional” approach, you can simply do all the quizzes. But there are other options now. I like the idea of doing a project, because it provides an opportunity to really apply what you’ve learned. Most interesting of all are the forum badges – you can pass the class simply by interacting with your peers. I say simply but that’s probably not the right word because I think there’s an incredible amount of learning that can happen through that interaction. Some students have even formed in-the-flesh study groups in their cities!

I don’t know if MOOCs are the future of learning, but so far I like what I see.

City of Learners

As you may know, Edmonton has been declared a City of Learners. Through the Edmonton Learning Initiative, the City is trying to make lifelong learning a core value of our community. The initiative has adopted UNESCO’s four pillars of education:

  1. Leaning to know – understanding how we learn
  2. Learning to do – emphasis on the knowledge component of tasks
  3. Learning to live together – educate to avoid conflict or peacefully resolve it
  4. Learning to be – the complete development of the mind body, intelligence and sensitivity

These are quite broad of course, but so is learning!

Thinking about the education system more specifically, we can see from the 2012 Municipal Census that roughly 24% of Edmontonians were identified as students. Here’s the breakdown by level:

edmonton students

Edmonton has long been recognized as a leader in public education, and Edmonton Public Schools has been singled out as a model district. It’s encouraging to see achievement results that show the continued success of EPSB’s approach. I’m also a big fan of initiatives like City Hall School, which provides Grade 1-9 students with the opportunity to learn more about how the city works. It has been a big success, so perhaps we should consider expanding it to other levels? Fieldston’s City Semester in New York sounds like the kind of course I could only have dreamed about in high school.

The University of Alberta has a publicly stated goal to become one of the top 20 universities in the world by 2020, and while that sounds audacious it also seems attainable. Edmonton is fortunate to have a number of great post-secondary institutions, and we should not take that for granted. Here’s just one post on why universities matter so much:

Universities appear to function as an important social leveler. Nations with larger numbers of great universities have lower income inequality (with a negative correlation of -.475 between the two). And universities are part of the mix of institutions that lead to higher levels of happiness and well-being across societies.

There are all kinds of reasons that having strong educational institutions here in Edmonton will make our community stronger, but is education also something we could be exporting to other places? This post by Avnish on Alberta’s labour shortage proposes a really interesting idea:

In an era where governments are scaling back funding to post-secondary education, India presents itself as a lucrative opportunity. Alberta’s colleges and universities can make up funding shortfalls by expanding into India, with its large market, significant growth potential, and cheaper start-up and operating costs.

The argument is that we could tap into India’s labour pool with this approach.

One of the biggest reasons to think about education in relation to cities is the economy. Edmonton enjoys one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, hence the labour shortage referenced above. We need trained, skilled workers not only to fill the jobs we currently have available, but to create new ones too. We’re in a resource-based economy, but attracting and inventing new industries will be important for our long-term viability. It can be tempting to equate the “creative class” with education, but Richard Florida cautions against that:

The creative class is not just a proxy measure for college graduates. Roughly three-quarters of college grads in America work in creative class jobs, but four in ten members of the creative class—16.6 million workers—do not have college degrees.

They may never have been college students, but they’re absolutely learners.

There are just so many aspects of education in relation to the city that could be explored! I’ll leave you with part of Council’s declaration:

As a City of Learners, we celebrate the excellence our community has already achieved in learning, and we set our sights on even greater success for individuals, institutions, industry and our city as a whole. The challenges of a complex and competitive world demand nothing less than conceiving of learning as an organizing principle in our community.

TEDxEdmonton Education

I can’t wait to hear about all of the interesting ideas and conversations that come out of TEDxEdmonton Education this weekend! Tickets are $99 and that includes a full day pass plus lunch and snacks. The official after party is Edmonton’s fourth Timeraiser, a unique art auction where you bid in volunteer hours.

An afternoon with the bean sprouts at Lauderdale School!

edmonton public schools foundationA few months ago, Sandra Woitas found me at an event we were both attending and asked if I’d be interested in helping with a video the Edmonton Public Schools Foundation was working on. I said sure, and asked what it entailed. Teaching kindergarten for an afternoon, was her response. I started to explain that I’m really not the best person for the job and that there must be someone else, but Sandra was having none of it. I was going to teach kindergarten!

We found a time that worked, and in mid-April I was set to spend an afternoon with the kindergarten class at Lauderdale School. “This is really going to happen,” I thought, and that was both exciting and scary! I called my Mom, a former preschool teacher and now an SLPA, to get her advice. She was encouraging as mothers tend to be, and advised me to have fun with the experience. A few days before I was scheduled to make my teaching debut, Terry Odegard, the Kindergarten Teacher at Lauderdale, sent me the lesson plan. We would be doing attendance, having a movement break, talking about the calendar (what date is it), playing at centres, taking a break for recess, and then reading a story. It would be a full afternoon with the bean sprouts as Sandra likes to call them!

Finally the day arrived. The feeling I had as I drove to Lauderdale School was not unlike that feeling you get when you’re about to write an exam and you know that you haven’t studied enough and you’re probably not going to do very well. What if the kids didn’t like me? What if I did something horribly wrong and ruined a child for life?! These are the irrational questions I considered.

Sandra met me at the school with coffee, which was really thoughtful and helped put me at ease. I met some of the other teachers in the staff room and then got setup in the classroom while the kids were outside. The camera guys had already done this a few times, so it was business-as-usual for them. I took a few minutes to familiarize myself with the classroom, and then the kids started filing back inside and I greeted them at the door. No turning back now!

The rest of the afternoon was a lot of fun. As you might expect, my fears were completely unwarranted. I couldn’t have messed up even if I wanted to – the kids know the schedule and were quick to point out what we should be doing next. I only used the noise rattle a few times – I was instructed to shake it as a quiet signal when I needed everyone to pay attention. During centres I looked after the painting table, and because the kids had been to the Valley Zoo recently and met the seals who painted with a paint brush in their mouths, we did that too. Hands behind your back and hold the paint brush in your teeth! That was fun, and yes paint got everywhere. During recess, I stayed inside to do a quick interview with the camera crew. Lots of people are uneasy about being on camera, but that seemed like the easiest part of the afternoon to me! The kids came back in from recess, I read a story with them, and then I was on my way. The afternoon really flew by.

Here’s the video that was produced (you can see me in action toward the end):

I ended up having a lot of fun that afternoon, and I definitely came away with much greater respect for kindergarten teachers and the important role that they play in a child’s development and growth. I’m certain I don’t have the patience to do what they do every day! I’m also thankful for the Edmonton Public Schools Foundation and the work that it does.

The Foundation was launched February 10, 2010, for two main purposes: to spread the word about the great things happening in the public education system and to support Edmonton Public Schools across Edmonton. We do this by offering opportunities for improved learning through financial, in-kind and human resource contributions.

Full-Day Kindergarten is one of the programs they support. The provincial government funds half-day kindergarten, but research tells us that children who attend full-day kindergarten are better equipped for success in future grades. We had a lot of discussion about that on EPCOR’s Community Essentials Council recently, but ultimately we decided to support the Full-Day Kindergarten program at Mee-Yah-Noh School (as we did in 2011).

Thanks again to Sandra, Terry, and everyone else at Lauderdale and EPSF for the opportunity!

You can learn more about the Edmonton Public Schools Foundation here. If you’d like to make a donation or otherwise get involved, you can do that here.

More than just email: Google Apps goes live at the University of Alberta

Today officials at the University of Alberta will flip the proverbial switch and 40,000 students will get access to the university’s deployment of Google Apps for Education, a significant milestone for a journey that began back in November 2008. The U of A’s move to Gmail has been talked about for quite some time, but the switch is about more than just email. This is an important step toward building the IT campus of the future – a mobile, connected community of staff, students, faculty, and alumni.

Our goal is to create the most mobile, connected academic community in Canada: anyone, anywhere, any time.

You can learn more about the broader vision here in PDF.

When Academic Information & Communication Technologies (AICT) was given the task of examining the University of Alberta’s email systems, they didn’t realize just how unwieldy email on campus had become over the years. With more than 80 mail servers spread across campus supporting nearly 150,000 accounts, it was definitely becoming difficult to audit, manage, and support. Six months after they began looking into the issue, AICT started exploring Gmail. In September 2009 the University of Alberta began legal discussions with Google, and over the next year negotiated the various contracts. There were lots of very valid concerns about privacy and security, and the university tackled those head on. There is no data mining, and there are no ads under the agreements that were finally signed in December 2010 (PDF).

Jason Cobb, Issues & Communication Manager to the VPs at the University of Alberta, explained some of the driving forces behind the migration to Google Apps. Improving the quality of the experience was really important, as was improving security. The shift will enable the university to reduce infrastructure costs, which should lead to some broader cost savings (he noted that no positions would be lost) and some productivity gains, as the mundane task of managing email can now be removed. “Most importantly, we’re trying to be transformational, not just transitional,” Jason told me. That means enabling collaboration in ways that just weren’t possible without a system like Google Apps. That’s why the U of A is adopting the full suite of apps, rather than just Gmail.

Other universities around the world have adopted Google Apps for Education of course, but the U of A is definitely one of the biggest to take on a project of this scope. Many other Canadian universities are now understandably interested in following the U of A’s lead (and Google is no doubt keen to see that happen as well). You can bet they’ll be paying close attention to the rollout.

The 80 mail servers that AICT identified are generally broken up by subdomain. Central Mail refers to the default @ualberta.ca account that all students receive, while many faculties and departments have managed their own email on separate servers, with addresses such as @cs.ualberta.ca (for the Computing Sciences department). The switch today starts with Central Mail. Students will follow a simple three-step process to convert their email to Gmail.

The first step is to understand and agree to the terms and conditions. The second step is to activate the Google Apps account, which will cause all new email sent to the student’s email account to appear in Gmail rather than in Central Mail. And the third step is to migrate any old emails into the new system (a process which can take a few hours). Students retain the exact same @ualberta.ca email address, and automatically get access to the other pieces of Google Apps such as Calendar, Documents, Chat, Groups, and more. They have the choice of switching for now – in October, Central Mail is scheduled to become read-only and students will have to switch at that point.

After completing the switch and logging in, students will be presented with the “launch pad” that will serve as the entry-point to Gmail and the other apps. When Simon Collier, Network Administrator with AICT, demoed the system for me last week, he wasn’t quite sure what to show! It really is just Gmail. The only differences are the University of Alberta logo and the lack of ads (it looks like there are one-line ads above the inbox, but those are actually RSS feeds…AICT chose to leave them enabled so that students have the option of turning the feature on or off).

The U of A has done some interesting things to make this happen. They’ve implemented single sign on, which has been rolled out for BearTracks as well. This means that Google never actually gets the user’s password, they just get a one-way hash. Security remains entirely within the University of Alberta. AICT has also done some work to make the migration process possible. Initially, they tested a migration tool hosted by Google and calculated that it would take two and a half years to migrate everything! That was unacceptable obviously, so they found another way. Now the university hosts the migration tool, and they estimate it would take just two to three weeks to migrate everything. How much data are we talking? As of mid-February, Central Mail was home to more than 228 million messages, taking up approximately 30 terabytes of space!

The next phase of the project is to migrate the other mail servers. It’s a more difficult task, because there is more business process involved. The migration will start right away with a staggered list based on failing hardware, age of hardware, business needs, and other factors. The goal is to have the vast majority of users migrated to Google Apps within a year, and to have everything completely migrated within 18 months.

The new system supports collaboration in a variety of ways. One of the simplest features is auto-complete on the “to” line when composing an email. Start typing a name and you’ll see matches from the entire campus directory! Likewise, you can now pull up anyone’s free/busy status in the calendar, which Jason emphasized will make scheduling meetings much simpler than in the past. The ability to share and edit documents using Google Docs is another big win for collaboration, especially given the new discussion features that Google recently introduced.

It’s not hard to see how this can be expanded in the future. Closer integration with BearTracks is something AICT is working on, so you can imagine registering for your courses and having your calendar get updated automatically. Perhaps students could be added to automatically created Groups for each of their courses. There’s a lot of opportunity to build atop the platform, and work is already underway to examine the possibilities.

The move to Gmail and Google Apps is a big deal, but it really is just the beginning. This is an initial step to better position the University of Alberta for the future:

We can’t be evolutionary in the changes that need to happen to our core IT infrastructure; we must be revolutionary. We must position ourselves to support the mobile, connected IT campus of the not-so-distant future, else we run the risk of being regarded as increasingly irrelevant to the needs of our students, staff and faculty.

It’s exciting to see the University of Alberta moving so boldly to make this vision a reality!

UPDATE: Here’s the official U of A post on the switch.

UPDATE2: Here’s the official Google Enterprise post on the adoption of Google Apps.

Still Trending Down: Computing-related graduates in Alberta

If we’re serious about shifting the Alberta Advantage, I think we need to focus on technology. If we really want to be in the sweet spot of adding lots of value, participating in the economy of the future, and being globally competitive, we need smart people who can be creative and innovative in the appropriate sectors and industries. Technology is absolutely going to be at the heart of any sector or industry that will enable us to be world-class and trendsetting, there’s just no question about it.

That’s why this graph absolutely shocked me:

The data comes from the University of Alberta, but I think it is representative of the province as a whole.

The number of students graduating in the fields of Computing Science and Computer Engineering in Alberta is trending downward, with no correction in sight. How can we build the economy of the future when the picture looks like this?

Here’s a bit more detail – with the number of graduates broken out by degree/program:

I haven’t looked, but I suspect enrollment numbers would be similar (that is, I don’t think an incredible number of students register in computing-related programs and then switch out).

Bill Gates has been talking about the need for more students to take up computer science for years now. There’s more demand than supply, even when you factor in immigration. The need for us to stay competitive in this regard is well-documented. It looks like we’re falling further behind.

I don’t know what the answer is. I don’t know how we get more students interested in computer-related degrees. But I do think it is important to consider this data when we talk about the success of our provincial technology sectors, and indeed when we consider shifting the Alberta Advantage.

What’s new at Grant MacEwan University?

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to attend the MacEwan President’s Reception held at the Robbins Health Learning Centre. Hosted by retiring president Dr. Paul Byrne, the event was an opportunity for the roughly 50 people in attendance to get an update on what the university has been up to. One of the things that Dr. Byrne was very excited to talk about was MacEwan’s positive showing in The Globe and Mail’s Canadian University Report. We were reminded that John Day became Chair of MacEwan’s Board of Governors in July, and Dr. Byrne shared some of the achievements from the last year. Aside from that, the evening had three main areas of focus – new programs, the Bachelor of Music, and the Single Sustainable Campus Project.

One of MacEwan’s newest degrees is the Bachelor of Communication Studies (BCS):

“The BCS prepares graduates for strategic roles in business, traditional and new media, not-for-profit and public sector organizations. Graduates of the BCS program will have a variety of career opportunities to choose from, including communications advisor, consultant, producer, writer, editor, journalist, reporter, or commentator.”

The BCS starts in September 2011 along with a new Accounting major in the Bachelor of Commerce program, and a new Arts and Cultural Management diploma. New programs have been a major area of focus for MacEwan lately, as evidenced by the broad array of “We have a [program] for that.” advertisements that have appeared around the city. They now offer around 70 programs.

Another new program is the Bachelor of Music in Jazz and Contemporary Popular Music, one of the few music programs in Canada to focus on jazz and contemporary music. When the full program is up and running, it will have 350 students. MacEwan will continue to offer its Music Diploma program as well. Music students from the school kept us entertained throughout the evening!

MacEwan President's ReceptionMacEwan President's Reception

Though officials in attendance didn’t spend much time talking about it, the Single Sustainable Campus Project was definitely a focus, with information displays and a looping video available for everyone to look at. This video is a great introduction to and overview of the project:

The project will occur in three phases over the course of 20 years. The Centre for the Arts and Communications, currently located in the west end, will move downtown first, to a new home at the corner of 112 Street and 104 Avenue. The programs at South Campus will move next, followed by Alberta College Campus programs. One of the driving forces behind the project is enrollment. MacEwan currently has around 32,000 students, and that number is expected to grow significantly over the next decade. Sustainability, student satisfaction, and the LRT expansion are some of the other key factors. MacEwan received a $1 million Knowledge and Infrastructure Program (KIP) grant last year to kickstart the project, and is continuing to explore logistics and additional funding opportunities.

MacEwan President's ReceptionMacEwan President's Reception

Grant MacEwan University is an important part of Edmonton’s strong slate of education options, so it’s great to see the school growing and succeeding.  You can follow MacEwan on Twitter and on Facebook.