Dr. Michelle Lamberson

University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada,
Director, Office of Learning Technology

The Role of ICT in Promoting a Learning Centred Environment: Examples from The University of British Columbia

Abstract
UBC's Vision (Trek 2000) and Academic Plan place a strong emphasis developing a learning and learner centred environment. Information (and communication) technologies are seen as important, particularly with their potential to lessen constraints of time and space, provide new forms of educational access, and promoting a deeper understanding and appreciation for the research process. This presentation will provide and overview of the UBC's learning environment and highlight uses of innovative and enterprise use of learning technologies that engage students within and outside the classroom, promote students' ownership of the learning process, and encourage students' growth in their profession. Examples will include use of the course management system in large courses, electronic portfolios in professional programs, and an inter-University project that provides web-based access to major scientific instrumentation.

CV
Michelle Lamberson is the Director, Learning Technology at The University of British Columbia. Her role, and the role of the Office of Learning Technology, is to provide campus-wide coordination and facilitation, linking units that are integrating technology to improve teaching and learning. Ongoing projects within UBC's OLT include electronic portfolios, social software (weblogs, wikis), learning objects, understanding the impact of enterprise course management system use and web-enablement of scientific instrumentation. In addition to her learning technology role, she is currently teaching an online geology course. Michelle returned to UBC from WebCT in 2002, where she had worked for three years in a variety of roles related to training, event planning and best practice use of the system. Prior to that, she was the Faculty of Science EdTech Coordinator and geology lecturer at UBC. Michelle's discipline area is Geology, receiving her degrees from UBC (PhD, 1993), Penn State (MS, 1987) and Boston University (BA, 1981).

Mission Statement
Students are most engaged in learning when they feel ownership of the process and the results.