BCcampus Mixtape Podcast: Creativity, Collaboration, and Community in Higher Ed

When:

October 19, 2022 all-day

2022-10-19T00:00:00-07:00

2022-10-20T00:00:00-07:00

Today’s episode features two interesting conversations: one about innovation and collaboration with Saeed Dyanatkar, executive producer of the award-winning UBC Studios and Emerging Media Lab at the University of British Columbia, and one with Mirabelle Tinio, Ed Tech advisor and instructor at Langara College, on connection and community.

Biographies:

Saeed Dyanatkar smiling — Saeed Dyanatkar

Saeed Dyanatkar is the executive producer of the award-winning UBC Studios and the Emerging Media Lab at the University of the British Columbia. Saeed has been leading and facilitating innovation projects that focus on applications of emerging technologies in teaching and learning for over a decade at UBC.

In 2016, with support from UBC leadership, and in collaboration with a group of faculty and staff Saeed initiated the Emerging Media Lab (EML) at UBC. The EML provides an interdisciplinary innovation incubation hub with “Permission to Fail” for turning innovative ideas into new tools or techniques. At EML, faculty, students and staff, collaborate on experimenting with emerging technologies to solve problems related to teaching, learning and research.

In collaboration with colleagues from other universities and industry, Saeed also spearheaded the creation of the Emerging Media Community of Practice (EM CoP) where practitioners and researchers from across the country meet, exchange ideas, and share their work in a regular basis.

Mirabelle Tinio smiling — Mirabelle Tinio

Mirabelle Tinio is an Educational Technology advisor, French instructor, and Chair of Modern Languages at snəw̓eyəɬ leləm̓-Langara College, in Vancouver, British Columbia. She has an MA in French literature from UBC and a Maîtrise de lettres modernes from la Sorbonne Nouvelle and is currently pursuing a Master of Education at UBC. In addition to teaching, she offers workshops on learning technologies, supports instructors with EdTech tools, and facilitates book clubs. She enjoys collaborating with others on projects that are student-centred, exploring opportunities to work with students as partners and building connectedness and community.

Over the last 18 years as a French instructor, she has come to realize how important it is to collaborate with fellow instructors and has enjoyed working with colleagues throughout B.C. who teach Chinese, French, Italian, Japanese and Spanish on projects through the Standing Committee on Language Articulation (SCOLA). Collaborating with BCcampus on the Small Teaching Online book club in the Spring of 2020 has been an incredibly rewarding experience. The pandemic has given her first-hand experience of how connection in the classroom and with colleagues can empower us.

She is acutely aware of the need for social justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion in post-secondary institutions and is concerned that, despite learning institutions existing for students, sometimes students’ needs are forgotten. As a lifelong learner, she is constantly challenging herself to be a more reflective teacher and find ways to humanize education.