Antoine's PBL blog

Over the past two weeks I have been doing quite a bit of reflection on the topic of designing and supporting for online learning.  As Varsity College, the institution that I work for, moves resolutely forward with its agenda for the promotion of teaching & learning in the online environment, I realise that it is necessary to bite the bullet and get serious about this matter as an integral and permanent part of my teaching practice.     I have already in past introduced some aspects of technology into my teaching - small things such as playing relevant YouTube videos to my Legal History students (great content there on Roman battles and Romans doing all sorts of historically important things), or exploring, together with my students, the United Nations’ online repository of international legal instruments.  Obviously some classes (subjects) lend themselves to these sort of activities more than others do.  The two subjects mentioned above lend themselves to this sort of expl

This week’s Economist magazine describes how, in 1982 Fraser Mustard, a doctor, founded the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) as a 'university without walls', in which researchers could work across disciplines.  CIFAR encouraged its fellows to share their best ideas – often without much reward - rather than guarding them jealously.  The result has been strong development in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other technologies in Canada, with profitable results and making that country one of the world's leaders in AI and associated technologies. [1] The story got my attention because I have been thinking a lot about the topic we are currently working on in our PBL group.  Veering between enthusiasm and a fair bit of scepticism, I wasn’t sure (still am not completely, I have to admit) if networked learning and collaboration are everything they are cracked up to be.  Borrowing from the ‘restaurant’ (À la carte v Buffet) theme we were working on in our g