About the Panel
In a season once defined by sunshine and rest, summer in British Columbia now brings an ever-present reminder of the climate crisis: wildfires that threaten landscapes, communities, infrastructure, and learning environments alike. As these climate disasters become more deadly, how can B.C.’s post-secondary institutions respond swiftly, compassionately, and effectively?
Join us for a timely panel discussion exploring how the sector can better prepare for, adapt to, and respond during times of crisis. From evacuation orders and connectivity disruptions to student displacement and mental health challenges, our panelists will examine the real and present impacts of climate-related emergencies on learners, faculty, and staff.
We will explore questions such as:
- How can institutions ensure academic continuity when disaster strikes?
- What does meaningful flexibility look like in a time of crisis?
- How do we support students, especially those already facing barriers, in continuing their studies under extraordinary circumstances?
- What role do collaboration, preparedness, and trauma-informed practices play in institutional resilience?
Join in the conversation! There will be an opportunity for audience members to ask anonymous questions upon registration.
Whether you’re an educator, administrator, or policymaker, this 90 minute virtual gathering will offer practical considerations and sector-wide reflections on leading with care in an increasingly unpredictable world.
Register Now!
This notice is to inform you that this session will be recorded, archived, and shared after the event. By participating in this session, you acknowledge that your participation will be recorded and the recording will be made available publicly.
About the Panelists
Dr. Alisha David (she/her) is a post-secondary educator, researcher, and lifelong learner who believes in the power of story to transform teaching and learning. Over the past decade, she has held a range of roles in education, from educational assistant to classroom teacher, and she currently works as a full-time college instructor. Her practice and perspective have been deeply shaped by her years living and working in Treaty 8 territory, the ancestral and traditional lands of the Cree, Dene, and Métis peoples. Witnessing the environmental loss of this region has informed her research focus on disaster-induced loss and its implications for adult education. Alisha’s work explores how disruption and grief shape learning and how educators can respond with empathy and foster resilience.
Dr. Bala Nikku is an Associate Professor of Social Work at the Faculty of Education and Social Work, Thompson Rivers University. He is a racialized immigrant to Canada from the Global South and brings a rich background as a social work teacher, scholar, and practitioner. In this panel, Bala will share his insights on disaster social work, how he teaches it, and how he strives to make the classroom a sanctuary for learning. How can we turn vulnerabilities and risks associated with disasters into opportunities for learning, hope, curiosity, and resilience? For Bala, resilience is not about suppressing emotions or merely surviving or bouncing back, but about embracing moments of vulnerability as a source of action, strength, and wisdom.
Christy Foote (she/her) is the Events Manager at BCcampus. She is an experienced event planner with a background in interior design, known for creating inclusive and engaging experiences. With a focus on accessibility, safety, and community connection, Christy brings both creativity and care to every event she leads. Outside of work, Christy is a competitive fastball player and an avid world traveler, always seeking connection—whether on the field or across the globe.
Dr. Theresa Southam (she/her) completed her PhD in Human and Organizational Development in 2020. She is the Department Head of the Teaching and Learning Centre at Selkirk College and a 2025-26 Fielding ISI Fellow. With a long career in environmental communication, Theresa considers her life’s work to be the conservation of thousands of hectares of wetlands. She previously worked with the Federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, where she coordinated a network of community educators reaching over 10,000 children. She is the author of Driving Social Innovation: How Unexpected Leadership is Transforming Society (2022) and Transforming Trauma through Social Change: A Guide for Educators (2024). More about her work can be found on her website.
Event Description
In this interactive two-hour workshop, participants will be guided through the power and practice of reflection in action; a critical tool for deep learning, self-awareness, and both personal and professional growth.
Participants will explore:
- Why reflection matters: Understanding its role in learning, decision-making, and personal development.
- Effective prompts: How to craft and use reflective prompts to foster deeper insights.
- Ways to engage: How participants can respond to reflection prompts in different formats.
- Creative reflection activities: Engaging, hands-on exercises designed to bring reflection to life.
Through experiential learning, attendees will participate in various reflective exercises, gaining practical tools and strategies to integrate into their teaching, learning, and daily practices.
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This session will not be recorded.
About the Facilitator
Helena Prins (she/her) is a Learning + Teaching Advisor at BCcampus, where she coordinates the Facilitating Learning Online (FLO) portfolio. She began her career as a high school teacher in South Africa. Over the past 20 years, she has taught students of all ages and stages on four continents. A golden thread throughout her career has been breaking down barriers to learning.
Session Description
Web accessibility means making sure everyone can use your website, including people with disabilities. This brief session will introduce the basics of digital accessibility and the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG). We’ll cover common issues that make websites inaccessible and how this impacts real users. Participants will leave with a clearer understanding of what digital accessibility is and why it is essential.
Learning Outcomes
- Understand the purpose of the Website Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG)
- Analyze audience needs and understand diverse user experiences, including that of people with disabilities
- Learn about common issues that make websites inaccessible
- Identify potential website barriers and explore actionable ways to improve accessibility
Schedule
- Introductions and access information – 2 minutes
- Key definitions – 5 minutes
- Overview of the WCAG and common inaccessibility issues – 10 minutes
- Understanding your audience – 5 minutes
- Actionable items – 3 minutes
- Q+A – 5 minutes
Register Now!
This notice is to inform you that this session will be recorded, archived, and shared after the event. By participating in this session, you acknowledge that your participation will be recorded and the recording will be made available publicly.
About the Facilitator
Nora Loyst (she/her) is an accessibility consultant with Untapped Accessibility who brings expertise in service delivery, facilitation, and community engagement. She is passionate about collaborating with community to translate accessibility planning into practice. Nora holds a B.A. in Health and Community Services from UVic and is currently completing her Masters in Leadership Studies. Her commitment to accessibility is guided by her own lived experience as a person with a disability and she is enriched by the varied perspectives and experiences of her friends, family, and community.
This session is supported by Untapped Accessibility. Untapped Accessibility launched in October 2022 to support BC organizations comply with the Accessible British Columbia Act. A certified social enterprise, they have helped over 180 organizations reach beyond compliance and create more accessible organizations with comprehensive and innovative approaches to disability inclusion. They generate revenue for Open Door Social Services Society, supporting the non-profit’s mission to open doors to lifelong learning and career success for more people with disabilities.
2025-26 Accessibility Bites Series
- Accessibility Bites: Introduction to Web Accessibility, August 28, 2025
- Accessibility Bites: Supporting Post-Secondary Students with ADHD, September 25, 2025
- Accessibility Bites: Let’s Talk about Learning Disabilities, October 30, 2025
- Accessibility Bites: The Gift of Dyslexia, November 27, 2025
- Accessibility Bites: Access Friction, December 11, 2025
- Accessibility Bites: UDL 3.0 in Practice, January 29, 2026
- Accessibility Bites: An Indigenous Lens on Disability Rights, February 26, 2026
For recordings and resources from previous Accessibility Bites workshops, visit the Accessibility Bites Pressbook.
Join us for this free Facilitating Learning Online (FLO) virtual session as we wrap up our summer and prepare for the new academic year. We invite educators teaching this fall to bring their facilitation or design challenges to this 90-minute virtual coaching circle. In this FLO Friday session, participants will learn to use John Whitmore’s GROW model to ask questions as a way of supporting colleagues’ or students’ growth. 
The GROW model is an easy way to introduce coaching by using a framework to identify and set goals (G), reflect on the current reality (R), revisit options and opportunities (O), and set out with a plan that will (W) be done to achieve goals.
Participants will have the opportunity to practice this new learning in a facilitated coaching circle, where instructional challenges are brought forward and peers offer reflective questions to help find solutions.
Note: We use the GROW model of coaching at BCcampus to help each other work through challenges!
Registration Coming Soon
This event will not be recorded.
About the Facilitators
Robynne Devine (she/her) is the Senior Project Manager of the Project Management Office at BCcampus. Robynne holds a Master of Arts in Interdisciplinary Studies, specializing in leadership and organizational culture. In addition, Robynne designed and leads a peer coaching community of practice at BCcampus. When Robynne isn’t working she is likely cuddling with her dogs or playing with her grandson.
About the Session
This hands-on workshop empowers learning designers and professors to create engaging, decision-based learning experiences using H5P’s branching scenario and game map features. Participants will explore how AI tools like ChatGPT, Copilot, and NotebookLM can streamline scenario planning, dialogue generation, and feedback loops. No prior programming skills needed — just creativity and curiosity.
By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:
- Design interactive branching scenarios aligned with pedagogical goals using H5P
- Use AI tools to co-develop dialogue, storyline paths, and assessment logic efficiently
Registration Coming Soon
This notice is to inform you that this session will be recorded, archived, and shared after the event. By participating in this session, you acknowledge that your participation will be recorded and the recording will be made available publicly.
About the Facilitators
Gabriela Kurtz holds a PhD in Communication and Information, with award-winning research on gender and video games. She is an assistant professor at the University of the Fraser Valley where she champions empathetic, inclusive, and tech-forward pedagogy through active learning and experiential design.
Sana Jamil is an educational technologist with a PhD in Educational Technology and expertise in instructional design, leadership, and innovation. She leads curriculum development and experiential learning initiatives at University Canada West to support faculty training and program enhancement.
Together, Sana and Gabriela bring a powerful blend of strategy and creativity, making them the ideal team to guide educators in leveraging AI and H5P to design meaningful, learner-centered interactive experiences.
About the Series
Discover the BCcampus EdTech Sandbox Series consisting of workshops that empower educators, learning designers, and graduate students in B.C.’s post-secondary institutions to explore, experiment with, and evaluate cutting-edge tools for enhancing teaching excellence and student success. Aligned with the B.C. Post-Secondary Digital Literacy Framework, this program emphasizes a support technology perspective, encouraging open-mindedness, curiosity, troubleshooting skills, and the selection of appropriate tools for work and study.
Focus Areas for 2025-2026
- The AI Sandbox: a space dedicated to experimenting with, and reviewing, artificial intelligence tools and applications in educational settings.
- Other Learning Technologies: a space to explore, experiment, and review emerging learning technologies beyond AI, highlighting their potential impacts and practical applications.
In 90-minute live streamed webinars, expert leaders will introduce and demonstrate cutting-edge, open, and free, or low-cost, educational technology tools.
By actively participating in these sandbox sessions, participants will experiment with tools, work with fellow educators to review features of the tools, gain insights into teaching activities, and discover ways to integrate these tools into courses.
Recordings of the presentations and reviews of the tools will be available on our website following the event.
EdTech Sandbox Series Sessions
- September 10, 2025 – Choose Your Own Adventure! Dynamic Branching Scenarios and Game Maps With H5P and AI Tools
- October 8, 2025 – The Intelligent Notebook: Become a Knowledge Expert With NotebookLM
- October 17, 2025 – Remote Proctoring Through an Ethical Lens: the Case Against Surveillance
- November 26, 2025 – Claude vs. ChatGPT: Choosing the Right AI for the Job
- January 21, 2025 – Build Your Own Teaching Bot: My Story of Creating CITE GPT as a Teaching Tool
- February 18, 2025 – Re-imagining the Past: Deepfake as a Tool for Creative Storytelling and Visual Literacy
The British Columbia Open Education Community (BCOEC) welcomes members from the post-secondary sector in British Columbia and the Yukon. This community convenes monthly in virtual gatherings, fostering an environment for sharing insights, providing support, and engaging in discussions about the challenges, best practices, and current issues within open education.
Register now!
Recordings and transcripts available from past meetings: B.C. Open Education Community (Playlist)
Session Description
This brief session will offer practical strategies for creating learning environments that support students with ADHD. You’ll learn how to reduce cognitive load to support executive functioning, explore multi-modal teaching methods, and discuss ways to build flexibility without sacrificing accountability. Whether you’re designing a course or working one-on-one with students, you’ll leave with tools to better meet their needs and help them thrive.
Learning Outcomes
- Identify key challenges faced by post-secondary students with ADHD
- Select multi-modal strategies to support diverse attention and learning needs
- Examine course elements that balance flexibility and accountability to promote student success
Schedule
- Introductions and access information – 5 minutes
- Key definitions – 5 minutes
- Overview of multi-modal learning and cognitive load – 10 minutes
- Building in both flexibility and accountability – 5 minutes
- Wrap-up and ongoing learning: access statements – 5 minutes
Register Now!
This notice is to inform you that this session will be recorded, archived, and shared after the event. By participating in this session, you acknowledge that your participation will be recorded and the recording will be made available publicly.
About the Facilitator
Meg Ingram (they/them) is a multiply-disabled accessibility advocate with a passion for project management, planning coordination, and equitable education. Drawing from their background working in both higher education and social services, they have a deep passion for carving out accessible processes and building meaningful relationships within and across sectors. Meg holds an M.A. in Sociology, with a focus in disability studies, from Queen’s University, and a B.A. in Sociology from the University of Victoria.
This session is supported by Untapped Accessibility. Untapped Accessibility launched in October 2022 to support BC organizations comply with the Accessible British Columbia Act. A certified social enterprise, they have helped over 180 organizations reach beyond compliance and create more accessible organizations with comprehensive and innovative approaches to disability inclusion. They generate revenue for Open Door Social Services Society, supporting the non-profit’s mission to open doors to lifelong learning and career success for more people with disabilities.
2025-26 Accessibility Bites Series
- Accessibility Bites: Introduction to Web Accessibility, August 28, 2025
- Accessibility Bites: Supporting Post-Secondary Students with ADHD, September 25, 2025
- Accessibility Bites: Let’s Talk about Learning Disabilities, October 30, 2025
- Accessibility Bites: The Gift of Dyslexia, November 27, 2025
- Accessibility Bites: Access Friction, December 11, 2025
- Accessibility Bites: UDL 3.0 in Practice, January 29, 2026
- Accessibility Bites: An Indigenous Lens on Disability Rights, February 26, 2026
For recordings and resources from previous Accessibility Bites workshops, visit the Accessibility Bites Pressbook.
Event Description
Creating and selecting educational resources that centre equity requires intention and planning. Without this foresight, there is a risk of perpetuating biases and harm in both the field of study and society at large. This includes the potential for inaccessible content, offensive language, harmful stereotypes, and the undue promotion of dominant cultural norms, knowledge, and identities.
In this two-hour workshop, we will explore some harms that can be perpetuated through educational materials as well as frameworks that can help us resist that harm. We will then work together to develop an equity framework you can apply to your work.
Note: This workshop will include breakout rooms to allow for small group discussion and collaborative brainstorming. Anyone not comfortable with breakout rooms will be given the option to work on their own.
Registration Coming Soon
This session will not be recorded.
About the Facilitator
Josie Gray (she/her) is an advisor on the Open Education team at BCcampus, where she develops and implements projects, learning events, and initiatives that advance open education practices in the B.C. post-secondary system. Since 2016, Josie has been deeply involved in learning and instructing on accessibility best practices within open educational resources (OER). She has a Master of Design in Inclusive Design from OCAD University.
About the Session
Dive into the future of educational research and resource management with NotebookLM. This hands-on workshop is designed to empower educators with the tools and techniques to utilize NotebookLM as a resource tool, research assistant, and source organizer. Together, we’ll explore how to effectively upload, analyze, and synthesize information from diverse sources, transforming raw data into actionable insights. Beyond efficiency, we’ll delve into how NotebookLM can transform the student experience by fostering deeper learning, critical thinking, and research skills.
By the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:
- Setup and navigate NotebookLM
- Upload and organize diverse types of source materials
- Utilize NotebookLM’s AI-powered analysis tools to extract information
- Use NotebookLM to synthesize information and create resources
- Integrate NotebookLM into the student learning experience
- Create prompts to ask NotebookLM to perform specific tasks
Registration Coming Soon
This notice is to inform you that this session will be recorded, archived, and shared after the event. By participating in this session, you acknowledge that your participation will be recorded and the recording will be made available publicly.
About the Facilitator
Driven by a passion for empowering educators, Robin Leung (he/him) is an educational media strategist and ed tech guru who champions meaningful media and learner-created content. He’s a go-to resource for navigating the ever-evolving landscape of educational technology. Robin’s adventurous spirit extends beyond the classroom; he’s an avid traveler and food lover, always ready to share a new journey.
About the Series
Discover the BCcampus EdTech Sandbox Series consisting of workshops that empower educators, learning designers, and graduate students in B.C.’s post-secondary institutions to explore, experiment with, and evaluate cutting-edge tools for enhancing teaching excellence and student success. Aligned with the B.C. Post-Secondary Digital Literacy Framework, this program emphasizes a support technology perspective, encouraging open-mindedness, curiosity, troubleshooting skills, and the selection of appropriate tools for work and study.
Focus Areas for 2025-2026
- The AI Sandbox: a space dedicated to experimenting with, and reviewing, artificial intelligence tools and applications in educational settings.
- Other Learning Technologies: a space to explore, experiment, and review emerging learning technologies beyond AI, highlighting their potential impacts and practical applications.
In 90-minute live streamed webinars, expert leaders will introduce and demonstrate cutting-edge, open, and free, or low-cost, educational technology tools.
By actively participating in these sandbox sessions, participants will experiment with tools, work with fellow educators to review features of the tools, gain insights into teaching activities, and discover ways to integrate these tools into courses.
Recordings of the presentations and reviews of the tools will be available on our website following the event.
EdTech Sandbox Series Sessions
- September 10, 2025 – Choose Your Own Adventure! Dynamic Branching Scenarios and Game Maps With H5P and AI Tools
- October 8, 2025 – The Intelligent Notebook: Become a Knowledge Expert With NotebookLM
- October 17, 2025 – Remote Proctoring Through an Ethical Lens: the Case Against Surveillance
- November 26, 2025 – Claude vs. ChatGPT: Choosing the Right AI for the Job
- January 21, 2025 – Build Your Own Teaching Bot: My Story of Creating CITE GPT as a Teaching Tool
- February 18, 2025 – Re-imagining the Past: Deepfake as a Tool for Creative Storytelling and Visual Literacy
The British Columbia Open Education Community (BCOEC) welcomes members from the post-secondary sector in British Columbia and the Yukon. This community convenes monthly in virtual gatherings, fostering an environment for sharing insights, providing support, and engaging in discussions about the challenges, best practices, and current issues within open education.
Register now!
Recordings and transcripts available from past meetings: B.C. Open Education Community (Playlist)