magnetonic

I've decided to accept the offer from the University of Ontario Institute of Technology, or UOIT. It's Canada's newest university, located in Oshawa, Ontario, about an hour east of Toronto. Their education program is very new—they've only had two graduating classes so far. But since they've been vetted by the Ontario College of Teachers, I'm not too concerned about the quality of the professors or program. In fact, the program looks pretty good. It's an -IT school, à la MIT, they seem to be focussing on the sciences and technology. I'll have seven weeks of practicum in middle and high schools and eighteen weeks of classes. I'm to expect a high workload with lots of group work, online work, video shooting and editing, even website making.

The reason I chose this school is two-fold. First: it's one of two schools (other: Brock) that gave me offers that are closest to Toronto, where most of my family and friends are (you know who you are!). Second: since I was advised by an educational consultant, one of my dad's long-time customers, that it would be helpful to me to attend a school which could place me in my practicum in a board where I want to eventually want to teach, I chose this school. It's located in Durham region, rather than Hamilton, which has closer ties to Toronto. In fact, they do place students in Toronto!

Another, more superficial, reason is that I've always wanted to go to one of those laptop schools. It's only a lease, but it's fully loaded with software and also fully supported. I think it's going to be an IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad R series, but I'm not sure. They also provide Apple PowerBooks to some students, so we'll see.

In any case, I've put in my deposit to secure my spot and I should be hearing more from them later. So I'll keep everyone posted as things develop.