Technology influences every aspect of present-day education, constantly changing and becoming more progressive. But while the words “education” and “technology” suggest innovation and progress, diversity and representation still lack in the field, particularly for women. While there is much work left to do, that disparity is gradually changing.

The following is a showcase of an early EdTech trailblazer, Dr. Bonnie Stewart, who is paving the way for other professionals in the field with her unique insight and expertise.

Photo courtesy of the University of Windsor

Stewart received a Bachelor of Education (primary and secondary) with a Certificate in Special Education from Mount Allison University. She obtained a Master of Education degree from the University of Mount Saint Vincent and later earned a Ph.D. from the University of Prince Edward Island.

She is an experienced educator, writer, and social media researcher who offers insight into course methodology and best practices for other online professors. Since the start of her career in the late 90s, she has been a teaching pioneer in distance and open learning.

Stewart is currently an Assistant Professor of Online Pedagogy and Workplace Learning at the University of Windsor in Ontario, where she researches and presents topics related to digital identities, open pedagogies and practices, digital and data literacies, and the implications of digital networks for institutions and society.

Read a publication authored by Stewart on networked scholarship in digital participatory networks, such as Twitter. Another notable publication is Stewart’s paper about data collection in higher education.

She has published in peer-reviewed and public venues and given more than 60 keynote and plenary addresses across North America, Europe, the Middle East, and Australia.

Her interest in the impact of emerging digital practices in higher education and society has attracted some media attention and a fair amount of coverage on her work.

Listen to a CBC News interview featuring Stewart and another guest speaker on online shaming. Or read a Q&A session with her, also on CBC News, regarding Facebook privacy concerns.

Considering Stewart’s contributions and intriguing discussions in our field, along with the recognition she has among her peers and colleagues, it becomes apparent why I selected her impressive career to showcase for this assignment. I had the pleasure of interviewing Stewart through an email exchange. The interview has some enlightening messages, particularly for students in the field of educational technology, where she advises them to “[b]e a student of pedagogy, not of apps” (B. Stewart, personal communication, September 8, 2021). Stewart goes on to explain that,

[w]hen we overfocus on the technology, and not what educational goals it enables us to achieve, we risk undermining public education entirely. Those who frame education as a problem in order to sell the solution back to society for a profit will always seize on educational technology as a means to their ends, but it does not have to be if it is used in the spirit of and in service to the original idea of the Internet as participatory structure. (B. Stewart, personal communication, September 8, 2021)

To learn more about Dr. Bonnie Stewart and to learn more about her work, check out the theoryblog and follow her on social media (LinkedIn, Twitter:@bonstewart, Facebook).