UBC Launches its First On-line Master’s Degree

UBC Reports | Vol. 48 | No. 11 | Sep.
5 , 2002

First class includes students from around the world

By Shari Virjee

For the first time in UBC history, students will be able
to get a degree without even stepping on campus.

The Master of Educational Technology (MET) is not only being
taught entirely on the Internet but it is also a joint degree,
developed and delivered with Tec de Monterrey, Mexico’s leading
private university.

The program is offered this month by the Faculty of Education,
and is being developed in collaboration with the Distance
Education & Technology division of Continuing Studies,
an established world leader in the field of on-line learning.

Distance education programs have used a predominantly independent
study approach to teaching because the technologies did not
allow for sustained interaction and collaboration. But with
on-line technologies all that changed.

"Using on-line technologies to deliver distance education
has enabled us both to increase the quality of our programs
and to reach out to the world," says Tony Bates, director
of Distance Education & Technology. He adds that on-line
courses let learners interact with each other and their instructors
and collaborate on projects and assignments. They also allow
for rich intercultural experiences in which learners from
different regions of the world can come together on-line to
share experiences and work together.

The MET emerged from the highly successful and award-winning
Post Graduate Certificate in Technology-based Learning (TBDL),
designed and delivered by UBC Distance Education and Technology
(DE&T) in collaboration with Tec de Monterrey from 1997
until this year. For the MET, educators from both institutions
teamed up to develop a graduate program aimed at educators
in both the K-12 and the post-secondary sectors who are interested
in learning how to make effective use of learning technologies
in their practice. The MET has attracted educators from across
BC and as far as Switzerland and the Philippines (see sidebar
below). A quarter of MET applicants are TBDL graduates intending
to transfer courses to obtain a Master’s designation.

More than 60 credit courses are now available on-line through
Distance Education & Technology and several new and innovative
professional degree programs are in development.

For more information visit Distance Education & Technology
at http://det.ubc.ca, or
the MET website at http://met.ubc.ca.

Shari Virjee is the manager of New Business Development
for Distance Education and Technology.

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