Wider Horizons

Tracy EdwardsAs educators priming our learners for the challenging worlds they’ll find waiting upon graduation, we expect them to climb some pretty steep learning curves during their time with us. We know how they feel: we’re facing some sharp slopes of our own these days.

Many of us still have chalk dust embedded in our fingerprints. Of course, we’ve evolved with the technology, transitioning from blackboard to BlackBerry, amazed at each new leap forward, but generally able to keep pace as we hurtled into the digital, wireless connectivity of this technological frontier. We have to: our students deserve and demand it.

But if the last two decades have brought massive change to the mechanics of learning, it is now creating options for delivery.

The traditional concept of students in neat rows with an instructor at the front of the room is not gone, but it has been joined by other, exciting possibilities that provide enhanced  learning, greater flexibility of time and scheduling, and alternatives for interaction between instructor and student.

And that’s a mere fold in the fabric of postsecondary education, still unspooling from the loom on an almost daily basis. On page six of this issue, you’ll hear from Thomas Frey, a futurist from Colorado who raised eyebrows and questions on a visit to our campus last spring when he shared his predictions with our faculty and staff.

Libraries without books? Students able to choose from an educational smorgasbord, forking onto their plates courses from a variety of institutions in order to make up their degrees? An educational universe so vast and comprehensive that holding a much valued doctorate will become the starting line rather than the podium? As I say, many raised eyebrows and, ultimately, raised questions.

Imagine, suggested Frey, a marketplace where the world becomes your catalogue, your mall. You see a person wearing an item you admire, snap a photo, and order it from your iPhone, all within seconds.

Transfer this concept to education, and you suddenly understand how we here in the bricks-and-mortar world of Lethbridge College find ourselves on that incredible learning curve.

Fortunately, we are not hidebound fogies who can’t spot the opportunities and necessities of change.

As a college, our stock-in-trade is still our ability to offer practical, relevant experience, hands-on education, which for most of our students is the principal reason they trust their post-secondary education to us. But while we will continue to rely on our strengths, we are ever mindful of the climate in which we live and the need to watch the barometries of change.

We exist to serve our learners. We will do this without sacrificing the standards for which we are well known. We will enhance their experiences and rise to meet their expectations. We have exceptional faculty and staff who live our vision of excellence and innovation.

We will be the institution of choice for our learners, whether they sit in our classrooms, connect with us online or find us in some fashion not yet devised.

Wider Horizons
Dr. Tracy Edwards
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