Student conquers math, wins award

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Devin Gambler, a Nicola Valley Institute of Technology first-year administrative studies student who used to struggle with math, is the first full-time student to win a B.C. Innovation Award in Education Technology. Usually the award goes to full-time, post-secondary institutional staff or faculty. Gambler, 26, was nominated by NVIT's faculty.

"I didn't really know about it until I actually won it," said Gambler. "So it was a surprise."

Gambler won the award for the work he was doing in education technology for MOODLE, a platform or program for online learning. Specifically, he won for the implementation of MOODLE, and the support and service that accompanied it. The program "assists in learning and communication between instructors and students," but it was designed primarily for instructors.

Gambler added, "It's almost like Yahoo groups, I guess. It's very similar to that, where you could have people go online and access certain resources... I can hand in my assignments through there, and instructors give out assignments through there as well.

"It's an open source, meaning that it's free. It's not something that the institution paid for, and so that went favourably for the institution as they didn't have to commit so much funds for something that was, at the time, experimental. "

Another benefit of MOODLE relates to the environment.

"It almost kind of works into a paperless course, where you wouldn't have to write anything down on paper."

Originally from Bigstone Cree First Nation in Alberta, Gambler has lived in British Columbia for seven-and-a-half years and graduated from high school in Kamloops. He has three more years to get his degree, then he'll go to the University of Saskatchewan for an MBA. Gambler's goal is to be an entrepreneur.