Blog Post #2 – British Columbia Digital Learning Strategy

Digital Learning Recommendations

In accordance with the BC Advanced Education and Skills Training (AEST) June 16, 2020 meeting, a list of recommendations were put forward to assist the needs of learners and educators in BC. The meeting considered five recommendations. At the time, two recommendations were created for the purpose of “addressing immediate Covid-Response,” which at the time was a serious issue since it was less than six months since COVID-19 became recognized as a pandemic according to the World Health Organization (WHO, COVID-19 pandemic, 2025).

The first recommendation according to the June 2020 brief was to “Convene an Expert Panel to Support Evidence-Informed Decision Making in BC”. This would create a panel of experts in digital education and appoint Health officer Dr. Bonnie Henry as Digital Learning Officer, the head of the panel. This would enhance the quality of digital learning and reduce the stress caused by the pandemic.

The second recommendation is to “Shift the Conversation.” This would put emphasis on learners to adapt and have different expectations for online education, and lessen the load on educators that need time to prepare for remote teaching. The recommendation will benefit both learners and educators. To elaborate, learners will have a wider breadth of knowledge and become better prepared for digital and remote learning, and educators will become more experienced with teaching students remotely.

References

COVID-19 pandemic. (2025). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic

COVID-19 Timeline. (2024). Center for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/museum/timeline/covid19.html