I was intrigued when I first saw the ease with which colour and cohesion could be added to curriculum, through well-designed educational software, but technology integration in classrooms only became a passion when I witnessed some of its side-effects. Although I respect the struggle that I.T. has presented to schools, I am always excited to see the inexplicable affinity that children have for the visual interfaces of the cyberworld. I have seen children who typically shy-away from risks, experiment and problem-solve with a piece of computer technology in hand. I have also watched childrens' horizons expand as a good teacher used technology to reach out from a small class in rural Maine to connect her students with peers a world away.

How I went from a luddite to a passionate advocate of technology integration in education...

In 1995, after spending a wonderful summer canoeing in Algonquin, studying turtles, my employer asked me to teach the lab portion of his mammalogy course that fall. In particular, he wanted me to create a manual for the course incorporating hand-drawings that I had done the previous year. Teaching Support Services at the University of Guelph would only agree to fund my lab manual if I found a way to create it electronically. Fortunately, my Dad was not just a technology whiz, but a great teacher who was able to guide me in selecting and learning software that would suit the particular needs of our project.

The finished electronic manual improved on paper versions in a number of ways: it was more portable (housed on a 3.5" diskette), included hundreds of colour drawings (whereas the paper version would have been black and white), and hyperlinked labeled & unlabeled diagrams (for self-study), as well as glossary terms. We could also make infinite copies of our manual without losing quality, spending money, or wasting paper. I was convinced: computer technology could support learning in simple but significant ways.

Over the next 4 years, I was a keen participant in the explosion of educational multimedia. Working as a project manager and artist with Cybernatural Software, I helped design and build a series of award-winning educational CDs. With each new project, I learned more about overcoming the challenges of instructional design, and became more creative in the art of illustrating concepts through multimedia.

In 1999, I joined the Acadia Institute for Teaching and Technology (AITT) at Acadia University, Canada's first mobile-computing university. Known as the centre for innovation at Acadia, it was our mandate to support faculty as they adjusted to their new technology-rich environment. We consulted with faculty on their curriculum, addressing the challenge of complimenting their teaching with technology, without losing sight of learning outcomes. I developed support materials, gave workshops, and ran units of study, also incorporating various creative forms of assessment and evaluation.

In 2000, I designed and taught my first week-long multimedia workshop series, in French, to teachers from the Acadian School Board. The success of that program helped to attract funding for 2 other ambitious teacher PD programs, one national, the other international. Each program brought teams of teachers, students, and administrators to Acadia for a week, to build curriculum-based projects for their classes or schools. In the second year, I was the lead instructor on both programs.

In 2003, the University of Southern Maine hired the AITT to help design professional development sessions for public school teachers, in preparation for the first ever, statewide laptop program (targeting middle schools). I was sent to Maine as the instructional designer to consult with the program founders there, on the needs of teachers and students. On that incredible trip, I was inspired by the wisdom of the people running the Maine Learns program; by their optimism, and creativity. Most of all, I was overwhelmed by the students who, with laptops in hand, seemed to have found a new passion for school.

That same year, I co-taught 2 courses for pre-service teachers in the Acadia School of Education. Both project-based, each course modeled the use of computer technologies as a support to constructivist teaching.

Just before I left the AITT in 2003, I applied for and received funding from Industry Canada to implement a new project-based program for francophone teachers and students from communities across Canada. I co-wrote the curriculum for that week-long workshop with educators from the Université de Moncton. Our goal was to help otherwise isolated fracophone communities connect through the internet, giving them a medium for exchange of ideas and cultural identity.

In 2003, after our first daughter was born, we moved back to Ontario where I have worked from home on my graphic and instructional design business Blue Chair Designs. I also do occasional work for the Kawartha Outdoor Education Centre teaching leadership to middle-school students, and Art in the Outdoors to grade 9 students. In 2008, when both of my children were in school for the first time, I joined Scientists in School (SiS) as a presenter. My experince with SiS has been a welcome reminder of how at-home I feel in a classroom.