Tara Rogic


Tara Rogic, BMS

Educational Support Coordinator
tara.rogic@ubc.ca | 604.822.6333


What are your “Big Picture” responsibilities at ETS?

What are your values in working in educational technology?

The overnight shift to online teaching and learning in response to the pandemic thrust all post secondary institutes into a situation where educational technology was seen as the lifeboat to stay afloat. Assessments and syllabi were quickly uploaded to Canvas, and considering the time frame we’ve had, we have all done exceptionally well in transitioning so quickly and effectively. While this demonstrates the importance of having ed tech infrastructures in place in all educational institutes, I don’t believe that this is where the real power of ed tech is found. Educational technologies can be beneficial beyond keeping us safe at home during a pandemic – it can be used to make materials more accessible, more affordable. It can allow for courses to be taught and experienced internationally, and can support open educational resources and initiatives. Ed tech as a social good is its main value in my mind, and hopefully this potential only continues to grow as we slowly move to a ‘new normal.’

Specific Areas of Interest in the Field of Educational Technology

I’m personally interested in content creation in a variety of mediums, most prominently video production.

What is your ‘wild card’ fact? (Something someone might not expect just from looking at you)

I can play the ocarina, which was fully inspired by the Legend of Zelda series 😊

What are strengths and challenges that comes with teaching online?

The flexibility that online teaching and learning allows greatly benefits both instructors and students, an affordance that can improve quality of life and time management significantly for those who juggle many different roles. Time, presence, and communication are all areas of online teaching that can be rethought and remediated by the flexibility online tools and asynchronous teaching have to offer.

I would say the greatest challenge in online teaching is the same challenge we have all faced during this pandemic; the feeling of connection to one another that is difficult to fully recreate in online spaces. Creating a sense of community in a course is definitely possible through different collaboration activities such as discussion boards, Zoom breakout groups, and group assignments, but the physical classroom would often also facilitate collaboration and connection beyond the participation in course content, and this can be difficult to form when fully online.