Jim is an experienced and widely respected educator. He has been a post-secondary media instructor in British Columbia since 1971, and has developed and delivered successful courses in narrative, new media theory, video production, interactive video, game design, film production, photography, and computers in education. Jim did his graduate studies in the Comparative Media Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and has successfully mentored a number of graduate students in the completion of their own degrees. He is a member of Simon Fraser University's School of Interactive Arts and Technology, and was a recent recipient of the University Award for Excellence in Teaching.
Jim has had a wide variety of educational leadership positions, both in instructional departments and in the broader educational community. He was chair of British Columbia's Standing Committee on Educational Technology, and Senior Program Manager for Educational Technology in the province's Centre for Curriculum, Transfer and Technology. In these roles he was responsible for educational technology policy and strategic implementation in BC's colleges, university-colleges and provincial institutes. He is a past chair of the Canadian Association for Distance Education, and has been called upon to advise the federal government on policy in the areas of educational technology and distance education. Jim has been honored by awards from the Pacific Instructional Media Association, the TeleLearning Research Network, the Canadian Association for Distance Education, the British Columbia Educational Technology Users Group and a fellowship from the Commonwealth of Learning.
Jim is also a practicing documentary filmmaker and video artist. His prize-winning works in the emergent genre of “Ambient Video” have been widely exhibited internationally. You can find out more about Jim's own work at his websites: www.dadaprocessing.com and www.ambientvideo.ca.