Digital Literacy Fellowship Advances Digital Teaching Skills Through Ontario Extend Program

Marlis Bruyere (DHA M Ed BA B Ed) is an instructor for 7 Generations Educational Institute and Sault College in North Western Ontario. She teaches Early Childhood Educators, Social Service Workers, and FASD programs and provides faculty supervision for ongoing placements to train up the next generation of excellent employees in these fields. Marlis is passionate about learning and wants to ensure that students love to learn in their respective fields and develop the confidence and skills to be excellent representatives of their areas of expertise. 

Miranda Mckenzie is a Digital Literacy Fellow who has held various positions in the field of online teaching and learning for over five years. She is particularly interested in online educator training and in discovering new, innovative and engaging technological-pedagogical strategies. Miranda firmly believes in lifelong learning and is always on the lookout for new learning opportunities.

Nidhi Sachdeva is an evidence-informed learning designer, post-secondary educator, researcher, and educational technology specialist. She is interested in designing and integrating evidence-informed instructional practices using a wide range of educational technology tools. Recently, she has been researching this through the notion of microlearning and cognitive science. With more than fifteen years of experience developing and facilitating learning content for both face-to-face and online courses, Nidhi is extremely passionate about integrating the science of learning into her pedagogical practice.

Dr. Victoria Chen is a Digital Literacy Fellow with eCampusOntario. Her passion is in designing virtual and face to face learning and work environments that empower learners to prepare them for the ever-changing future. This includes working with educators to embrace the fear and disruption of new technology and experiment with it to enhance their digital literacy. Throughout her career, Victoria has supported diverse populations in higher education in Canada and internationally in the scholarship of teaching and learning, instructional design, learning spaces, and educational technology to re-examine their current teaching and learning environment in a new lens and facilitate their professional growth by embracing the unknown.  

Chadia Mansour is an applied linguist, post-secondary language educator and expert in digital and distance education with over 20 years of higher education teaching experience in North America and the MENA regions. Chadia has been actively involved in curriculum and instructional design, online and blended design for learning, and assessment. Chadia is passionate about inclusive and equitable education for all and has been leading initiatives and advocating for open access to education and OER.  

Brandon Sabourin is an Educational Developer in the Office of Teaching and Learning at the University of Guelph. In this role, he supports curriculum design and review, and facilitates faculty development programming. Brandon has taught courses on educational technologies, social media, and course design at the University of Windsor, St. Clair College, and Red River College Polytechnic. His doctoral research explored the educational development needs of sessional instructors, informed by their approaches to and conceptions of teaching. Brandon is motivated to support educators of all levels to take the next step in their development through facilitating meaningful, inclusive conversations about teaching and learning.  

Jen Booth is a faculty librarian and professor at Georgian College.  Jen has been involved in open initiatives since 2003. In her current role, Jen focuses on copyright, web accessibility, OER, digital literacy, research data management, artificial intelligence, and academic integrity. Assessing and implementing emerging technology to solve challenges in the library and the classroom has always been a key area of interest for Jen. 

Stephanie Ferguson is an ELearning Designer at Trent University who is passionate about creating high quality, engaging online learning experiences. She has an extensive background in designing both synchronous and asynchronous courses for remote Indigenous communities, adult literacy learners, and students in higher education. She is a strong advocate for humanizing the online learning experience through the use of educational technology that allows people to connect and collaborate in meaningful ways. 

Dr. Ilana Bayer is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Pathology & Molecular Medicine and the Director of the Learning Technologies Lab in the Continuing Professional Development Office in the Faculty of Health Sciences at McMaster University. Dr. Bayer teaches in programs ranging from undergraduate education to faculty development and in a variety of learning environments including face-to-face, blended and online. She is passionate about developing others, improving learner experience and success, and pedagogical innovation. Her research interests include education technologies, education design, program evaluation, user experience and anatomy education. 

Mary Chaktsiris is an engaged educator interested in student-centred learning and teaching innovation in higher education. She is a first generation learner who holds a PhD in History and teaching awards from Queen’s University and the Canadian Historical Association (CHA). Ask her about team-based learning, active learning, micro-credentials and the nearest coffee shop.