Julie made her way to the Educational Technology & Design (ETAD) program while working as a math/science teacher in an Adult Basic Education program in rural Saskatchewan, and her years in the classroom helped to shape many of her educational philosophies and values. After a year at part-time, she switched to full-time graduate studies, allowing her to pursue a Graduate Teaching Fellowship position as well as additional scholarship opportunities within the ETAD program.
Currently, Julie is an Instructional Designer at the University of Saskatchewan, where she joined the Distance Education Unit in 2017, a few months before completing her coursework in the ETAD program. At the DEU she works in course- and program-level design and development, primarily for online learning, and has also supported a number of projects related to Open Education Resource (OER) development. In collaborating with faculty and instructors, Julie strives to build courses that empower teachers as they adapt and develop their own teaching style for online/distance formats, while also empowering learners via flexible, user-friendly, interactive, and socially-engaging learning experiences. She is a firm believer in the impact that Instructional Designers can have as advocates for students and agents of institutional change.
Julie has had the opportunity to work on some very interesting and unique projects while at DEU. A few examples are as follows:
- Supporting Dr. Jorden Cummings and Lee Sanders in the development of their PSY 120/121 open textbook.
- Supporting Dr. Carrie Prefontaine in the use of student blogging for WGST 210.
- Online program design and incorporation of longitudinal eportfolios for the Health Professions Education graduate program.
- Working with Dr. Harold Bull to create a boatload of H5P interactive learning activities to improve his BMSC 210 online course (here’s one fun example).
Connect with Julie on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-m-maier/