Teacher Editorial | By T. A. Driedger
In the happenstance of career pathways, I was able to interrupt my decades of teaching and leading in rural Alberta with two recent international travels, one to an Alberta accredited school in Qatar (2014) and another to a BC certified campus in South Korea (2017). Both offshore learning environments reminded me very much of my earliest years in a small Alberta school surrounded by long and seemingly empty distances – far from my colleagues and their enviable urban density. I, like these new global educators, was eager to form collaborations, to grow a bank of professional resources and proven skill-sets. The universal need was and is to feel less isolated as a novice educator (Sleppin, 2009). My own outreach became dependent on my teamwork for Alberta Education – where I could grow my contact base and resource knowledge while conducting the contracted research. For young academics in their cross-border adventures, I would also suggest designated time, segments fostered in a continuum of digital dialogues and framed by their own research design.
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