LEARNING TOGETHER IS FUN

Hi,

My learning partner for 3100 of PIDP course is Karen Stainton, a very enthusiastic and well informed professional, working, new mom from New Westminster. Karen and I hit off well right from the first exchange of emails and messages. She understood the limitations of my work-stay area and we agreed to discuss over phone than skype. Karen has the abilities to deal with older generations and their limitations in this virtual world and filled me with encouraging ideas for dealing with similar issues.

Karen works for Technical Safety BC and has immense pressure to keep herself abreast with technicians and contractors from diverse fields and she has to meet their upgrading in newer areas and at the same time keep them engaged whenever they are scheduled for her classes. Unlike mine, being academic, she has not only to deal with teaching but also to stay at par with latest trends in the technology market so as to retain their clientele. This motivates her to become innovative every single day, and she has found that through PIDP she can and has been able to find different ways to forge into effective teaching skills. From our conversation, I feel that PIDP has ‘taught Karen how to fish’, in the sense we both agree that the tools made available to us, and how we’re able to apply for our profession, the nuances of using media, especially ‘gamification’ has been a boon to us both. She is quite an expert in software, has immense patience to teach and explain, which I found during our conversations and discussions.

As Karen’s student’s generations range from ages 10-30 years apart, she has to make her classes more engaging to include all of them, making the older clients to assimilate well into newer pastures. But Karen has the abilities to make it happen, not only with her teaching skills but also to put herself in the shoes of her students and emerge to find what works best for them. Her mantra, as I perceived, is that an educator has to stay both ahead of technology and also be close enough to listen to the needs and means of meeting student’s skills and helping them succeed.

I would like to acknowledge that Karen has been a friendly partner, not just for this activity but also a motivating course mate, whose association I would like to cherish for a long time. Thank you dear Karen!