Hire an Educational Technology intern

In the Educational Technology program at Concordia University we require that all our Master's students complete an internship. This allows students to fully integrate their academic studies with practical experience in the field of educational technology.

Through contacts with professional settings, our program ensures that its curriculum is relevant and that graduates achieve a high level of focused academic and professional competence.

Companies operating in Quebec may benefit from the tax credit for practical training in the workplace. In order to receive a tax credit, fill out the Revenue Quebec online tax credit form and send it to the Department of Education to obtain the Internship Coordinator's signature www.inforoutefpt.org/creditimpot/

Students in the Educational Technology program learn to conduct needs assessments, to establish learning objectives, to design materials that achieve the intended objectives, and to choose the most appropriate strategies for performance improvement, development of skills , and knowledge enhancement. Our students are trained to recommend a variety of different solutions strategies like:

1. Instructional Solutions (for example training, workshop design,e-learning)
2. In-time solutions (like job aids, performance support systems, wizards)
3. Informal/Community solutions (support of social network building, communities of practice, informal learning spaces)
4. And a wide variety of combinations of these alternatives

Conducting needs analysis

Our students can conduct a needs analysis to examine performance problems in your workplace, to determine whether these problems might be resolved through instructional or non-instructional interventions.

Establishing learning objectives and choosing strategies

If the situation calls for an instructional intervention, our students can use information from a needs analysis to establish learning objectives that will lead to better job performance, and choose teaching strategies that will best suit the abilities of the learners.

Designing, developing and producing instructional material

Through courses in media design and educational computing, Concordia students learn how to effectively design, develop, and produce materials for a given medium. Most of our students have experience in two or more of the following educational media: educational software, multimedia (including CD and internet-based animations), digital videography, educational television, print-based materials, virtual classrooms and, of course, traditional classroom instruction.

Informal Learning/Community support

Through courses in learning theories, social computing, and constructivist design, our students learn how to support organizations in a variety of activities that are aimed to increase the social or community aspects of the organization. This can include evaluating collaboration via groupware or social software, designing sustainable community solutions (connecting employees to each other by building on informal networks), and evaluating the effectiveness and impact of ICT on community and social network development (on an individual and organizational level).

Conducting evaluations

Students are trained to gather data to answer questions regarding the impact of learning solutions. Specifically, they learn how to conduct formative and summative evaluations, create tools to measure learning and other performance improvement programs, and recommend changes that can strengthen these programs.

Our students are available either for a 140-hour internship or a 675-hour internship.

As soon as students have finished their core-courses, they are eligible to undertake an internship. The internship can begin and end at any point in the calendar year and is not constrained by the university term.

Although most students complete their internship on a full-time basis, some students are also available on a part-time basis.

Once you hire an intern, the intern is your employee to supervise as you would supervise any other employee, in accordance with the human resources policies of your organization.

In addition, we ask that you do the following:

• Provide an assignment that lasts either 140 or 675 work hours. You may continue working with the intern after the required number of hours have been completed.
• Review and sign an internship proposal, which outlines the scope and responsibilities of the intern and the employer, and becomes the basis on which our academic faculty evaluate the internship experience.
• Meet with the Internship Coordinator or Faculty Supervisor during an on-site visit and/or participate in telephone communications concerning the progress and performance of the intern.
• Provide us with an appraisal of the intern's work at the end of the internship. We provide a form for you to use.

Should you decide to host one or more of our students, here's what to do:

• Contact the internship coordinator who will answer any questions that you might have.
• Submit a completed internship posting by email. The internship will then be posted on our internal mailing system.

The internship coordinator will collect applications from interested students; their cover letters, resumes, and list of referees are sent directly to you. You identify the candidates you wish to interview, arrange the interviews with students and notify the internship coordinator of any accepted offer.