almost 2 decades in edtech

I realized while writing my comprehensive list of edtech predictions for 2013, that I’ve been playing around with edtech for almost 2 decades. That kind of surprised me. It doesn’t feel like that long. But, when I step back and think about it, yeah. Almost 2 decades.

• 1994 – started working as a contractor at the UofC faculty of Nursing, building a series of award winning multi-media inter-active CD-ROMs.1
• 1998 – left the UofC to work for a small eLearning company, building a multi-media inter-active learning management system for corporate training.
• 2001 – dotcom bubble asploded. unemployed worked as an independent consultant for awhile.
• 2001 – back to UofC, working in the Learning Commons as a consultant, building learning object repository prototype and other fun stuff. also built a corporate learning management system based on learning objects and standards etc…
• 2001 – hired as an instructional designer / programmer at the UofC Learning Commons. Worked on a bunch of various projects, including EDUSOURCE, CAREO, Pachyderm. Got to travel a bit.2
• time passes, hilarity ensues. blogs. wikis. podcasting. rss. good times. it was the golden age of edtech…
• 2011 – moved into IT at the UofC as an “IT Partner”, working with a few faculties, focusing on elearning stuff.

so. yeah. that’s a long time. and it feels like we’re constantly just on the verge of changing everything. No. Really. It’s all going to change for real this time. For good! Seriously! Wait. Why are you laughing? Stop it! cough

1. built in Macro-Mind Director, then Macromedia Director. Actually met @cogdog online for the first time around then. wow. [↩]
2. and got to meet awesome people like @brlamb, @downes, etc… [↩]