Association for the
Advancement of Computing in Education
Celebrating 30+ Years of
Service to the IT in Education / E-Learning Community
Celebrating 30+ Years of
Service to the IT in Education / E-Learning Community
Dr. MacDonald will use a metaphor of the seven stages of grief (shock, denial, guilt, anger, bargaining, acceptance and hope) to explore her experiences over the past decade making the transition from traditional face-to-face teaching to the adoption of eLearning pedagogy. Professor MacDonald will discuss her experiences with: creating eLearning cultures in traditional institutions; designing learning models and frameworks; soliciting support for professors in the form of time, recognition and training; creating and sustaining learning communities; developing social, cognitive and teaching presence; using social software to enhance learner engagement; the eLearning contradiction, weapons of mass collaboration, and designing and validating assessment tools to address eLearning accountability concerns. The story from the trenches of moving from the shock and denial stages of eLearning to the acceptance and hope stages is a long, sometimes frustrating, and often exhilarating journey. We continue to strive to arrive with innovative, engaging, authentic learning solutions to the limitations and barriers of eLearning.
Dr. MacDonald is a Full Professor cross appointed with the Faculty of Medicine, and a Senior researcher at the Élisabeth Bruyère Research Institute. Colla has been designing, delivering, and evaluating online courses and programs and conducting research on eLearning for over a decade. She has twice received the international WebCT Exemplary Course award and the Outstanding Researcher Award at the Faculty of Education at the University of Ottawa. Two of her online courses are currently being published as eBooks by Bentham Publishers.
Dr. MacDonald runs a research laboratory in Flexible Delivery and Transformative Pedagogies funded by the Canadian Foundation for Innovation. She currently supervises seven PhD and MA students, and a Visiting Scholar who are conducting research on various aspects of emerging technologies such as simulators, avatars, artificial intelligence, digital storytelling and mobile learning. This "team" collaborates with her developing creative, practical, efficient methods to address everyday educational problems.
Dr. MacDonald has designed and published three learning models (the Partnership Model, 1998; The Demand Driven Learning Model (DDLM), 2001; and the W(e)Learn Framework, 2009 link). A few of her recent projects in professional development and training include (a) developing, delivering and evaluating the worlds first online physician wellness program (b) an online workplace health program for health providers; and (c) a face-to-face program for healthcare teams across Ontario. Two promotional articles written about these project can be seen here and here. You are also invited to the websites here and here.
Many of Dr. MacDonald's projects and publications are related to evaluating various online and face-to-face professional education and credit courses; programs and learning objects. In one of her current projects she is validating a toolkit of assessment tools in five countries for interprofessional education. The toolkit (in both French and English) can be seen here.
Dr. MacDonald has published over 75 refereed articles, book chapters and conference proceedings. She has been principal investigator of SSHRC, Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, Inukshuk Wireless, Canadian Foundation for Innovation, Office of Learning Technologies and CIHR funded research projects related to designing and evaluating online programs in Physician Wellness; Workplace Health; Disruptive Behaviour; Dementia Care, Interprofessional Education, Global Health; Palliative Care, Designing and Validating Program Evaluation tools; and Reproductive Research.
To contact Dr. Colla J. MacDonald
email: cjmacdon@uottawa.ca
webpage: http://www.education.uottawa.ca/en/faculty/professors?p=cmacdonald
