Educational Technology in Industry and Academia: an NSERC-sponsored workshop
I was recently invited to attend a workshop sponsored by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Canadian federal agency that is responsible for funding most of the “hard science” projects in Canadian post-secondary institutions (the other Canadian funding agencies at the federal level are the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and the Canadian Institute for Health Research (CIHR)). In all, about 25 experts in educational technology from academia and industry were invited to attend the workshop, whose goal was to try to make an initial foray into understanding what academia needs from industry and what industry needs from academia. The agenda included some show-and-tell segments from academics, a lightning round from the industry participants, and time to work in groups of about 6 people to answer the guiding questions.
I think the day was a success. We made some initial forays into understanding what the two camps needed from each other. Yes, there is a disconnect, but it may be more superficial than we think. No, the attendees were not a representative sample from all of those involved in educational technology in Canada. No, we didn’t make tremendous gains. Yes, we started networking with each other. In the end, I think we agreed that we would pursue a grass-roots approach and see how things evolve rather than trying the top-down policy-changing approach that often fizzles. We’ll see what happens, but I think something good will come of this initiative.