In Ottawa, Multi-Media Design Has Become A Driving Force In The Race To Educate Its 21st Century Workforce

As far back as the early 1990's, Ottawa's pioneers in multi-media design were envisioning a 21st-century Canadian workforce that would catapult Canada into the new century as a superpower in today's global economic system, through a system of learning while at work. According to accounts that document Canada's facilitation of multi-media as a learning tool for Canada's workforce, the design of such a system and its infrastructure would become a reality within 10 years. In 1994, in Ottawa, multi-media design and the exciting education-while-at-work system was just a vision in the minds of its own pioneers. The following is a written article based upon presentations given by A.W. Bates in 1994 at the World Conference on Educational Multi-media in Vancover:

("Educational Multi-media in a Networked Society." URL: http://bates.cstudies.ubc.ca/edmedia.html). As stated in this writing, Ottawa's future workforce in the 21st century will be learning while at work so as to exploit the information highway, thus reshaping its educational institutions into producing a new workforce capable of networking from a distance, thereby reducing the need for traditional education, and creating independent individuals that become self-employed or that work with the minimum of direct supervision, in order to compete in today's global labor and economic systems. In addition, the article states that the Canadian educational system, in '92/'93, already contained only 38 percent of its students who would be considered full-time students. This number was expected to change even more up to the present time.
Today, in Ottawa, multi-media design is having an impact on the educational system, just as these pioneers had envisioned. As shown in the following information regarding high-technology courses, including such specialties as multi-media web design and development, computer graphics, advertising design, digital media design, and multi-media applications, universities located in Ottawa and throughout Canada are offering these courses online and at a distance. See the following URL regarding The Art Institute Online at http://www.adigitaldreamer.com/multimedia-schools.htm#Ottawa.

The final point made: In Ottawa, multi-media design has opened up the future to the workforce of Ontario, as they have begun to complete the vision of these multi-media design pioneers and have exploited the information highway, hence, producing a new wave of occupations in technology, and have succeeded in acquiring the skills needed to be a serious contender in today's global market for multi-media services. An example of these new occupations in signal processing, engineering, geoscience and remote sensing is at the following website for IEEE, at http://www.ewh.ieee.org/r7/ottawa/grsoesp/index.htm. Ottawa has, indeed, joined in the technological "revolution."