This drop-in session for Faculty of Education faculty members, sessional instructors and TAs offered advice about course design, course facilitation strategies, digital tools such as Canvas and Zoom, and more. Our experienced team members answered questions about learning design and technology and empowered participants with guidance and resources for creating engaging learning experiences.
What are your main “big picture” responsibilities at LDDI?
My main responsibilities at LDDI are helping the faculty use learning technologies and assisting the LDDI team with workshops and other projects. This involves activities like communicating with faculty members and educators, updating Canvas pages and validating links, and helping out with projects involving multimedia content or new technologies like AI.
What are some of your specific, hands-on, day-today tasks at LDDI?
At LDDI, my day-to-day tasks are responding to emails and calls with inquiries about learning technologies such as Canvas, Kaltura and Padlet. I provide support to faculty members and instructors to use the technologies and to resolve any issues.
How does your work help support the LDDI office, and the Faculty of Education as a whole?
My work supports the LDDI office by assisting with projects and organization. For example, I help with planning and taking notes for our events in the Faculty of Education, and I help present during workshops about learning technologies like Canvas or AI. I support the Faculty of Education as a whole by working directly with faculty members and instructors to solve problems regarding the learning technologies that help courses run smoothly.
What are your specific areas of interest in the field of educational technology or beyond? How is your work at LDDI contributing or playing into those areas of interest?
I am interested in how technology can impact our day-to-day lives and interactions with others. As an aspiring math instructor, I am especially interested in how educational technology can be used to make resources more engaging and accessible. At LDDI, I am working with many useful learning technologies, and I am supporting faculty members and instructors to utilize them to benefit learning.
The Faculty of Education nominates one lead faculty member or instructor to join the UDL Fellows 2026 Cohort. An LDDI Learning Designer collaborates with the chosen instructor throughout the program, providing support and guidance for course redesign.
About the UDL Fellows Program
Running from May to August 2026, the UDL Fellows Program supports faculty and staff to apply UDL principles in course design and teaching practices. Fellows take part in workshops, online modules and project-based activities, with redesigned courses implemented during the 2026/27 academic year. Learn more.
Browse the event description, event schedule and presenter information on the TEC Expo 2025 webpage.
Photo Gallery
The Technology Enhanced Classroom (TEC) Expo bring faculty, students, staff and guests together to learn from each other. Each year we invite Faculty of Education UBC community presenters and to share success stories and challenges from their work teaching with technology. Our presenters share their innovative projects and inspire attendees to dive deeper into educational technology topics.
The Technology Enhanced Classroom (TEC) Expo was designed to showcase and celebrate interesting and innovative uses of technology in face-to-face, blended and online classrooms at UBC. TEC Expo 2025 was open to all members of the UBC community, across disciplines and University locations. It was a three-day long celebration, from November 18 to November 20, and consisted of a combination of engaging in-person and virtual conversations.
This Viewpoints panel discussion explored how digital storytelling can cultivate empathy, deepen understanding and inspire meaningful change across educational and community contexts. Designed for faculty, staff and students, the session highlighted intentional approaches to digital innovation that foster connection and transform learning — within and beyond the classroom.
Panelists Dr. Kristiina Kumpulainen, Dr. Maureen Kendrick, Dr. Kathleen Deering and Dr. Siobhan Wittig McPhee addressed critical considerations including ethical storytelling, digital equity, and authentic human connection, guided by the ABCs of Intention: Awareness, Betterment and Care. During the session, they shared insights from their research and practice in areas such as ecological storytelling, immersive audio experiences, multimodal literacies and community-based digital narratives.
You can learn more about their digital storytelling projects at the links below:
Kristiina Kumpulainen is a Professor at the Department of Language and Literacy Education, Faculty of Education, the University of British Columbia. Her ongoing research examines children’s ecological imagination, multimodal literacies and more-than-human storytelling. She currently leads the SSHRC Insight project Enhancing Ecological Imagination through Augmented Storying, which engages children and communities in co-creating augmented stories with forests, animals and everyday ecologies. Her work closely aligns with the ABCs of Intention, Awareness, Betterment and Care, demonstrating how digital innovation can move beyond market-driven logics to foster imagination, equity and multispecies flourishing in education and society.
Maureen Kendrick is a professor in the Department of Language and Literacy Education at the University of British Columbia. Her research examines literacy and multimodality as integrated communicative practices, and addresses a range of social and cultural issues in diverse contexts. She has a particular interest in visual communication and communicative repertoires, and has conducted research in various geographic locations in East Africa and Canada focused on women and girls, child-headed households and students with refugee experiences. Her current research focuses on understanding the potential of digital multimodal composing (including digital storytelling) for disciplinary literacies for newcomer, multilingual learners.
Dr. Kathleen Deering (she/her) is an Associate Professor in the Division of Social Medicine, Department of Medicine in the Faculty of Medicine at University of British Columbia (UBC). She is also the Faculty Lead of the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute Health Equity Research Hub and an Associate Member, Division of Occupational and Environmental Health, School of Population and Public Health, UBC. Her research program focuses on community-based research with people who have experienced social and structural violence, stigma and criminalization, including women living with HIV, sex workers and people who use criminalized substances; understanding key aspects of trauma-informed practice, with a focus on aligned peer-based approaches, that can address and disrupt the impacts of trauma, violence and stigma as health services barriers; investigating how structural, policy and community interventions can address health and health services access inequities; and methodological issues in health equity research, including related to quantitative, qualitative, mixed methods and arts-based methods.
Dr. Siobhán Wittig McPhee is an Associate Professor of Teaching in UBC's Department of Geography, specializing in innovative approaches to teaching and learning through digital tools, experiential learning, and place-based storytelling. Her work explores how immersive technologies—particularly spatial sound and augmented reality—can foster empathy and deepen understanding of social justice issues. Her recent projects include "Spatial Empathy in Action," an immersive audio experience foregrounding the voices of UBC's custodial staff, and the Vancouver Soundscapes Project, which transforms five decades of acoustic documentation into pedagogical tools. Dr. Wittig McPhee has received numerous awards including the AMS OER Champion Award (2025) and has secured over $300,000 in teaching and learning grants. Her research examines how digital storytelling can bridge academic knowledge with lived experiences, creating transformative learning opportunities that cultivate spatial empathy and advance the inclusion of historically marginalized communities.
Ensure your work email use complies with UBC best practices.
It is essential for UBC staff and faculty to understand their privacy obligations when using work email. UBC staff and faculty email accounts are subject to specific restrictions to ensure compliance with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA). Student and alumni email accounts are not subject to these restrictions.
Business-related communication at UBC should be conducted through UBC work email systems (i.e., FASmail). It should not be conducted through personal email addresses (i.e., Gmail). This includes auto-forwarding, meaning that staff and faculty are not permitted to auto-forward work emails to a personal account.
It is not recommended to conduct long or sensitive personal correspondence using your UBC email address, as there is a possibility that work-related emails may be disclosed by UBC in response to an access request under FIPPA.
Sending small amounts of private information between secure UBC work emails is acceptable. For very large quantities of sensitive data, it is recommended that you encrypt an attachment.
Temporary access to your UBC email outside of Canada is acceptable.
There are mandated retention schedules for UBC email content, and rules can be set in work inboxes to automatically comply with these schedules. The typical retention time for emails is five years, or two years for inactive mailboxes.
Any information that can be used to identify an individual and is not publicly available is considered personal information and must be kept confidential. For students, this includes any details that could be used to identify them such as email addresses, names and student numbers.
Student emails must not be put in the "To" or "cc" fields in an email to multiple people, as this would constitute a breach of privacy (i.e., disclosing student email addresses).
Information about students should not be shared in emails to external (non-UBC) email accounts, except if you are communicating with the student whose information you are discussing and they have consented.
Because external email systems host data outside of Canada, they are not considered secure under FIPPA. You should exercise considerable caution when sending any personal information to an external email address. When someone contacts you from such an account, it is best to discuss only their information, if they consent.
Do not, for any reason, share your CWL credentials with a third party for the purposes of linking your email to an external service provider.
Understand that your device needs to be secured if it is storing private information (as any UBC work email account no doubt will); ensure you have a secure passcode on smartphones and laptops.
For communicating with students in your courses, Canvas Communication and the Canvas Inbox are recommended, rather than direct email communication.
Since you cannot view student email addresses in Canvas, and this communication is kept separate from your work inbox, there is less risk of inadvertently sharing personal information. Keep in mind that students may set your Canvas messages to redirect to an external email address (e.g., Gmail), so guidelines regarding external email addresses should still be followed.
Email technical support is provided by UBC IT. Visit the UBC IT self-serve help-desk to submit a ticket regarding an email issue. If you have questions about communicating using Workday Student, you can email workdaystudent.educ@ubc.ca.
LDDI can offer guidance related to email policy in your courses. Contact us to request information and assistance.
This session for Faculty of Education faculty members, sessional instructors and TAs offered advice about course design, course facilitation strategies, digital tools such as Canvas and Zoom, and more. Our experienced team members answered instructor questions and empowered participants with guidance and resources for creating engaging learning experiences.
Curriculum and Evaluation Consultant c.soto@ubc.ca | 604.827.2114
What are your main “big picture” responsibilities at LDDI?
My responsibilities include creating evidence-based evaluation frameworks, assessing the impact of blended and digital learning initiatives, and working with faculty to ensure programs support UBC’s strategic objectives.
Who do you primarily work with?
I work with academic and administrative units throughout the Faculty of Education, with faculty and staff members, sessional instructors, external clients, development teams and other internal and external departments and agencies.
What are your specific areas of interest in the field of educational technology or beyond? How is your work at LDDI contributing or playing into those areas of interest?
My areas of interest include learner-centered pedagogies, multimodal and digital learning environments, and equity-focused education. At LDDI, I integrate these interests by applying learning analytics, data visualization, and innovative evaluation strategies to support inclusive and responsive teaching and learning.
Porfolio:
My professional portfolio showcases curriculum design projects, blended learning innovations, and evaluation resources.
Credentials:
PhD in Curriculum Studies, University of British Columbia.
MA in Foreign Language Teaching, Universidad de los Andes.
BA in Languages and Sociocultural Studies, Universidad de los Andes.
BA in Television Production, Politécnico Colombiano Jaime Isaza Cadavid.
