It’s January 2021. As an institution, we have been working, teaching, and learning remotely for almost 10 months. In my role as an instructional designer for eLearning I have been supporting faculty across the college as they learn new technology and hearing on a daily basis how they meet the challenge of teaching their students online synchronously and asynchronously. But who else hears these faculty stories aside from my colleagues? Who else needs to hear them?
January 2021 was when I decided that everyone needs to hear those stories and with a hazy plan and some quickly formatted questions, I began to reach out to some of the faculty I have worked with over the years to see if they would be willing to share their experiences moving to online teaching during a pandemic. I was surprised and touched by the number of them who agree to talk to me and allow me to publish their words on our CETL blog, so I began lining up interviews and published the first Camosun Faculty Story on February 16, 2021. But faculty were not the only Camosun folks who had to adapt to working online. So, in the fall of 2021, I began talk to other colleagues who faced the challenge of supporting faculty and students during that time, thus the change from Faculty Stories to Camosun Stories.
Gradually we returned to, I won’t call it normal, but back to a more settled place working in person and remotely as needed. But my 30 years as an instructional designer, I have heard so many stories of amazing things happening in classrooms I knew this project was not done. So, I adjusted my questions and kept sending out requests for interviews. I also began to email recipients of our Teacher Recognition Awards and have added Open Education stories to the mix.
In case you are curious about my “process,” I meet with interviewees on Teams so I can record the session, just to ensure accuracy of the transcript generated (no video or audio is ever shared with anyone else.) I then draft the story and then send it to the person I interviewed so they can review and make whatever changes they like. Then once I have final approval, I post the story on our CETL blog, and the post link in CamNews and in our CETL Bulletin. Why written stories and not podcasts or video? Well, I find many people are intimidated by having their voice and visage out there for the world to see, and text is SO much easier to edit!!
To date, we have posted 87 Camosun Stories, and a handful of Open Stories, and more are coming!
If you would like to tell your story (and believe me you ALL have amazing stories to tell from your classrooms), or if you know someone I should be reaching out because they have a story you think needs to be shared, let me know!
And finally, I want to express my gratitude to everyone who has taken the time to tell me their stories over the past four years. It has been a gift for me to share them with the world.