Baycrest

Winning awards with eLearning A passion for teaching and an affinity for technology set Cindy Plunkett on an unexpected path from kindergarten teacher to educational technologies specialist tasked with bringing online learning to Baycrest. A move back to Toronto from B.C. in 2000 led to a position in medical imaging at UHN. When the hospital introduced a new electronic health record, they needed help educating staff and Plunkett found her calling - "the marriage of healthcare and education." She subsequently received a Masters in Educational Technologies with a focus on adult learning and is now working on a PhD. When she started as Project Manager for eLearning and Educational Technologies at Baycrest in January 2016, no learning management system and no online learning courses existed. Starting from scratch, she led the implementation of a system that went live in one year and now boasts 82 eLearning courses developed at Baycrest. Staff, students, volunteers, clients, families and caregivers have access to educational programs on any device wherever there is an internet connection, 24 hours a day. Some of those courses are government mandated such as Privacy, Workplace Violence, Workplace Hazardous Materials (WHMIS) and Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities (AODA). Others are specific to geriatric care such as Communicating with Older Adults, Falls Prevention, Managing Responsive Behaviours and the 3D's – Dementia, Delirium and Depression. All were built on evidence-based best practice for adult learners by Plunkett and her team of Kataryna Nemethy and Mackenzie Moyer (eLearning Instructional Designers and Developers), whose work won first place awards at the last three annual Canadian eLearning conferences hosted by the eLearning Alliance of Canadian Hospitals. "The courses really help you learn and think things through."

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