Welcome to Week #1 for LRNT 521

Hello Everyone and Happy Monday!

Welcome to our LRNT 521 course! No doubt you have been exploring our course WordPress site  but I wanted to post here to introduce myself and make sure that you could find where the Instructor Posts appear on our course site. You will also find a copy of this message (and all weekly messages) in the LRNT 521 Moodle Companion Shell News Bulletin forum and they will be emailed to your RRU email.

About Me: I am Dr. Russ Wilde (just call me Russ), your instructor for LRNT 521, and have been teaching at Royal Roads University for the past few years in both the MALAT and MAHEAL programs.

Before joining RRU, I worked at several other Canadian post-secondary institutions in a variety of roles including educational technology, academic innovation, curriculum and faculty development, academic services administration, and senior management. I have experience in positions including oversight of online learning and educational technology, curriculum development, program quality assurance, faculty development, library services, academic support services, and applied research. After many years in senior leadership roles, I have returned to teaching and research activities related to leadership, technology innovation, and educational research methods. My current research interests are mainly focused on development of short-form reskilling/upskilling programs and the impact of emerging technologies on higher education, labour markets, and society.

Away from work, I am an enthusiastic amateur musician and composer. I’ve been playing guitar and bass for over 40 years—or at least making a lot of noise. It depends on who you ask. 😉

Course Blog: Throughout the course I will be posting news as well as provocations for us to discuss framed around our readings on our course blog. You can add a comment to reply to the course blog by scrolling down to the bottom on the page on Unit 1 and engaging in the conversation. You may also choose to share a link to your own blog site where you may have a post that speaks to an aspect of what we are discussing as well. 

Getting Oriented:

1.    Your first stop as you get oriented to the course should be the Schedule. As mentioned in the Link Closing session, you will want to review the schedule and map the due dates and activities against your work and personal calendars and commitments, ensuring that you have created time to do the work prior to the deadline. Past students have commented on the need to build in time for doing the work as well as completing an edit and revision cycle on your writing prior to submitting.

2.    In the Course Overview video, Dr. Elizabeth Childs explains how the course is set up and shows you what is in each area. The navigation and structure of the course sites are consistent throughout the program so learning how to navigate the course site will be helpful.

Week 1: Our course begins with Unit 1 which is the annual MALAT Virtual Symposium. There are no readings for Unit 1 as you will be busy participating in live sessions as you are able, listening to recorded sessions, and contributing to discussions on the padlets. You will see in Unit 1 of our course that there are specific sessions you need to attend/watch and the various the requirements you have with respect to participation in the virtual symposium (live or via the recordings). I know this sounds silly to say but don't forget to scroll down the page to see all of the information ;)  I will join in some of the sessions this week and also have a few minutes to introduce myself in Friday’s schedule.

So, have a great first week! I am looking forward to our emergent conversation throughout the course and I look forward to seeing you online for those of you who are able to join in the live sessions this week.

Best,

Russ