The Douglas College Newsletter ™ New Westminster Campus, David Lam Campus January 2005 IN Douglas College Kathleen Lindstrom: A Lamazing story For Kathie Lindstrom, becoming a Lamaze Certified Childbirth Educator was a true labour of love. The Perinatal Program Manager completed her certification in November, 2004 and was praised by Lamaze (pronounced /e- moz) International in Washington, DC as “an outstanding leader in the childbirth educator community.” ‘The training and certification process involves months of training and a rigorous examination. Participants must also embrace the Lamaze philosophy of promoting and supporting normal childbirth through Keynote speaker Thomas Berger will speak on Ethics and Education at this year's Pro-D Day Pro-D Day February 9 Mark your calendar for the third Douglas College Professional Development Day, February 9, 2005 ‘The theme this year is Ethics and Education and the keynote speaker is Thomas Berger, one of Canada’s leading judicial experts and a former Justice of the BC Supreme Court. Watch your mailboxes for updates. education and advocacy. “Tt was a lot of work, but it was worthwhile. I knew we needed to be moving in a new direction as far as childbirth educators training and Lamaze is such a good fit for us,” said Lindstrom. Lindstrom’s achievement marks a big step forward in a partnership between the Douglas College Perinatal Program and Lamaze International. It will require curriculum revisions for the prenatal program and all Douglas College Prenatal instructors will be required to become Lamaze certified within three years. The Teaching Skills component of this certification will be offered all across Canada through Douglas College. ‘The partnership is the result of much hard work and ofters exciting new opportunities, says Lindstrom. “It is a great opportunity to work with Lamaze, which has the most current, evidence-based information in the field and they are just as excited about working with us,” says Lindstrom, who has been with the Perinatal Program at Douglas College for 12 years and in the perinatal field for 24 years. “It’s also an opportunity to reinforce our mutual philosophies in educating parents and help reduce the fear-driven attitudes around childbearing — to give women back their confidence in childbirth. Birth is normal, natural and healthy and women have an inner wisdom that guides them through birth — we want childbearing families to know and trust this.” Lamaze International is an organization of nearly 3,000 professionals, parents and providers promoting natural childbirth. It is the only childbirth certification program accredited by the National Commission for Certifying Agencies, the accrediting body of the National Organization for Competency Assurance (NOCA). Kathie Lindstrom: “An outstanding leader in the childbirth educator community" myDouglas: one-stop on-line communications This month, a new electronic resource will be added to the mix at Douglas College, but it’s the one that can tie it all together. MyDouglas, the new Web-based portal, has unique features and benefits that give everyone in the Douglas College community one- stop access to all College on-line services. Through myDouglas, you ll be able to access WebCT, GroupWise for Web, the College Web site, Web for Faculty and the listserv list at Douglas College. You'll also be able to bookmark any Web site of interest, and have it appear as a permanent part of your personal myDouglas home page. This communications feature of myDouglas is important as it invites communication among everyone in the College community. So how is this different from GroupWise? All students and employees will have a myDouglas e-mail account, unlike GroupWise, where only current employees have accounts. College employees may choose to use their myDouglas e- mail account to communicate with students, and their GroupWise account to communicate with colleagues. If you are teaching a class, you should be aware that your students may be sending messages to your myDouglas account. If there is any chance that you will not be checking myDouglas on a daily basis, you can forward your e-mail to the account of your choice or set up an automatic reply. You can do this yourself within myDouglas or contact the Help Desk at 5330 for instructions. “MyDouglas is a communications tool, but primarily, itis a portal that can be customized by each person to highlight or select what is individually important to them and organize it in an application that is constant every time they log in, regardless of their environment,” says Luc Lang, Applications Manager in CEIT. ‘The new portal has a calendar, e-mail, announcement channels and course home pages with very similar features to WebCT. But it’s not going to push WebCT out of the picture. “MyDouglas is not intended to be a replacement for WebCT and the designers of the £ software that runs myDouglas have spent a , £ considerable amount of time to ensure that WebCT will work with their product,” says Lang. For those not familiar with WebCT, it’s a password-protected learning environment that comes complete with learning tools and student management tools, like the ability to post students grades and receive assignments. Used as an adjunct to face-to- face class discussion, WebCT offers a private and confidential setting where students can see only what is relevant to them, within the larger environment that supports discussion groups and program- related resources. The space can be as sparse Or a sophisticated as you like. Nursing has customized their WebCT space to be a huge storage area of topic-related resources, including audio posts to help students pronounce medical terms. ‘The difference between myDouglas and WebCT is that course home pages in myl Jouglas are automatically generated by Banner and populated by students on registration. The course home pages also have groups (bulletin boards), opportunities for file and photo uploading, and customization abilities. MyDouglas also allows people to connect and communicate with the rest of the College through a variety of discussion groups. See page 2: Make the connection to myDouglas Quote of the Month “The object of a new year is not that we should have a new year. It is that we should have a new soul.” G_K. Chesterton