The Tech Sandbox: A space for collaboration, testing and experimentation
The Tech Sandbox has officially launched as a partnership between ITMS, the Libraries, and the Teaching Innovation Incubator/Office of the Associate Vice-President, Academic. The development and design of the Sandbox is grounded in key University of Waterloo strategic directions, including:
- Waterloo’s 2020-2025 strategic plan to “advance an agile, technology-enabled learning ecosystem” (p. 12)
- Waterloo’s Digital Learning Strategy which encourages “ongoing proactive exploration and research into emerging technologies and their potential application in teaching and learning” (p. 20)
- 2020 Campus IT Review which recommends “capacity for innovation and support for instructors’ changing needs for diverse pedagogical approaches” (p. 71)
The Sandbox is intended to give faculty, staff, and students a space for collaboration, testing and experimentation of different educational technologies and software for use in teaching and learning. Its virtual presence allows for the piloting and experimentation of software, such as interactive course content or polling tools, intersecting often with new affordances of LEARN. The physical space (LIB 329) includes VR headsets, a 3D scanner, and 360 camera which are now available for instructors to test and integrate into their teaching practices. It also replicates active and flexible learning environments with pods, movable furniture, and interactive TVs to encourage engagement.
The Sandbox will be developing a formalized process and role in advancing the piloting of any new educational technologies to ensure they meet the needs of our faculty, students, and institution.
Other 2025 accomplishments
Some of the other great work from the past year
EdTech support, transparency, and inclusivity
A new streamlined support page was published on the EdTech hub that improves the user experience in finding the right service, based on staff and instructor use cases.
An EdTech Forum for instructors and support staff has been launched.
Classroom technology
ITMS completed the presentation technology implementation for the university’s first centrally supported active learning classroom, PHYS 235. The classroom opened for classes for the winter 2025 term. Ten medium-sized centrally supported classrooms were upgraded to collaborative presentation technology systems. Renovations and presentation technology upgrades were completed for MC 2065 and MC 2066.
EdTech software
A one-year agreement to centrally support and fund iClicker is in place, as of the fall 2025 term. iClicker has previously been a student pay subscription model. A future potential renewal will be assessed in 2026. Central support for Webex ended in April. Pilots for D2L’s Performance+ and Creator+ ended in October, with the decision not to proceed with a longer-term purchase at this time. A review of PebblePad is in progress in response to the pending contract end date in 2026.
Upcoming 2026 initiatives
A look at what we'll be working on in 2026
EdTech Evolution 2.0: Enhancing the Framework
A small EdTech 2.0 team is collaboratively working with senior leadership, support staff, faculty and students to address the challenges with the current hybrid funding and decision-making EdTech model. Not only is the current model problematic from a cost perspective for the university and students, but it is also harmful to the student learning experience.
Under the oversight of EdTech governance and with the support of Deans Council Plus, the project will define a refined framework that contains collaborative processes that will enable holistic informed EdTech decisions that balance constraints, such as budget, with an understood impact to the student experience.
Classroom review
Classroom technologies and corresponding support models and decisions are fragmented through a combination of central Registrar’s classrooms supported by ITMS and those supported by faculties and academic departments. This fragmentation creates cost and resource inefficiencies that negatively impact instructors and students in the classrooms. These challenges have been flagged in the 2025 IT functional review, as well as the 2020 IT review, the digital learning strategy, and the EdTech support model consultations during the Evolving the EdTech Ecosystem project.
Through collaborative consultation, this review will result in recommendations to address inefficiencies and improve the classroom experience for support staff, faculty and students.
EdTech sandbox
ITMS will complete the initial integration of technologies in preparation for a campus launch that will be planned for 2026. A full student launch is expected for December 2026. Processes and responsibilities will continue to evolve between ITMS, the sandbox, the new teaching unit under the AVPA, and the Libraries.
LEARN improvements
With the decision not to proceed with D2L’s Creator+ add-on, there is still a need for instructor tools to create interactives in their course content. An investigation of possible solutions such as the home-built content management solution, HIVE, that is currently being developed for online courses, D2L’s new CreateSpace functionality and other tools such as Mobius will be coordinated through the EdTech sandbox. Other expected improvements include the final grade integration between Quest and LEARN, recommendations and repopulation of the data lake with data from LEARN and other EdTech tools for reporting and dashboards.
EdTech software
Recommendations from EdTech 2.0 will be implemented in 2026, including prioritizing and addressing current and future EdTech duplication. Renewal reviews and decisions of pending 2026 centrally supported EdTech will be planned for LinkedIn Learning, iClicker, PebblePad, Piazza and Zoom.