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[EDIT: As of today, 9/17/18, I have graduated with my BFA in IxD from CCA and have edited my answer in italics to reflect my current stance… Also because I got a notification that the founder of the program upvoted my answer and now I feel pressured to improve it as a recent grad lol]I'm a 2nd year IxD major at CCA. I don't know anything about Sheridan. I looked briefly at the description and course schedule on the web, and I'll point out a few differences that stood out most to me.LOCATION: SF/Silicon Valley, the heart of design+techYou're right in that going to college in the US comes with a super inflated price tag. You'll also be living in SF, which recently took first place on the list of the most expensive cities to live in in the US. But let's ignore the price for a moment. (An argument is that we'll get swept up as soon as we graduate if not sooner...and be able to earn a decent paycheck, so we'll be able to pay off loans and such at a reasonable pace compared to other students...) If you come to CCA, you'll arguably be living in the IxD hub. None of your Canadian professors will take you on fieldtrips directly to the headquarters of IDEO or Frog or Adobe or Samsung, etc. The Silicon Valley is only an hour drive away, so I've heard of people checking out Facebook and Google, etc. Your professors take you places not merely because the buildings are close, but because they WORK there and/or have close peers who work there (and are often to give guest lectures at CCA even when they give talks/workshops/advice around the world). Both of my internships were earned (with my skill of course and) through my professors and their connections. We are required to have at least one internship to graduate, and wherever you go, it will doubtless look good on your resumé even if you plan on going back to Canada. Now…that’s not to say that there aren’t other places in the world or the US that aren’t design/tech hubs. Seattle, Austin, Boston…these are some of the cities that are growing, not to mention areas in China, Canada, UK, Sweden… But every major company and thousands of startups have stationed themselves in the Bay Area. You’ll find a job even if the company is not your first choice.EDUCATION: Sheridan BA (typical university) vs CCA BFA (art college)I didn't do a thorough search, but it looks like Sheridan's IxD program is BA program to CCA's BFA. BFA means more art courses, which will appeal to certain companies (or won't). Furthermore, CCA requires all it's students to go through the CORE classes, which is what I informally dub "art gen-ed." Most of us take five classes per semester in our first year. We take basic fine arts etc. classes (working in wood shop, drawing from live models, working with video and audio, learning ancient/modern art history, etc....just to give you a rough idea), and two electives of our choice. Sheridan has you start right away, and I can see there being an advantage to studying IxD for 3 years versus 4 years. However, in the last four years, I took the time to enroll in classes (at least 1 a semester) with primarily Fine Artists (as opposed to designers who already think like me) and honestly it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in my life. As a designer, I should have empathy and learn to identify with how people very different from me think, create, express passion… So, I didn’t just learn craft skills that I could utilize in my design practice: a bit of fashion design, textiles, pottery, illustration, cinematography, exhibition art… I learned how to talk to and collaborate with other kinds of creatives. I seriously considered staying an extra semester just so I could take more fine art courses, but decided against it in the end :) Also, no matter what, you're going to have to realize that most IxD programs are new, and we are the guinea pigs. Yay! Actually, what that means is the program is usually shockingly receptive to student feedback about which classes are working or not, which projects are helpful or not (especially when compared to other majors at CCA).EDUCATION: DESIGN ETHICS!!!!!The CCA IxD Program teaches us design ethics even before it was “cool” to do so. Right now in 2018, people are talking about it a lot especially after the #MeToo movement and Facebook scandal / 2016 election. Not every one of my peers left the program feeling so strongly as I do about design ethics, but I know that I learned it from CCA and nowhere else. So…while it’s amazing that the UX world is so diverse in that it has people from all different backgrounds and professions…it’s also potentially dangerous because so many people think they can just “pick up” design thinking and start creating when there’s so much more to UX. Designers have the power to change lives through their work; you can’t do that work without having properly thought through the potential moral consequences of your decisions or your [lack of] empathy for people who think differently than you or the young generation of designers that look up to you. …Okay, that’s enough. I could go on forever on the importance of this.EDUCATION: CodingThird, I can't really tell by the course titles, but I know that CCA doesn't teach a lot of coding. We have a few classes and prototyping labs/shops, but we're more or less expected to teach ourselves how to code. Many of us are a bit puzzled and annoyed by what appears to be a lack of focus (as I imagine coding may become more of a requirement for future students), but it's what we have to deal with. Another difference is in the course titles. Sheridan's seem more descriptive of what it'll be about. "Writing for IxD" caught my eye. If we're taught that at CCA, it's within another class (like “Writing for Design” which is a super popular course). If nothing else, I learned how to write like a UX designer (portfolio, resume, emails, etc) through my own hard work and the classes/workshops inside the major and through Career Development.LEARNING ENVIRONMENT / POWER OF STUDENT VOICECCA truly prioritizes its student voices. It may not always be super apparent, but every year CCA improves. In the four years I was there, they created a Dean of Diversity and Inclusion, strengthened the Student Council, created a special “CCA Cares” form for students and teachers to report concerns for themselves or others from as little as “I’m stressed and need some help” to “I believe my peer is in danger and needs help right away” to “My teacher said something sexist in class and I feel so uncomfortable.” CCA knows its students often don’t know where to turn for help, so the form is there to help filter through requests and direct students to resources they need. There is also a focus at CCA on the LGBTQ community, which makes that community feel much more comfortable and in-their-skin to speak. There is a vocal minority that complains on social media that some teachers focus too much on advocating for them rather than teaching the class material. I also find it challenging to pick out the "normal college" Humanities classes from the number of required classes we have. Well, it’s hard to find a good balance.CCA is an art college with only art students. We don't have a CS major. There is only a MFA Business program, and that’s the only/most non-art/design program we have. Sheridan has other majors AND athletics. CCA has no athletics. We have no gym, no pool...we don't even have a cafeteria (no meal plan). Think about what type of environment you want to be in. If you’re looking for a typical college experience, CCA is not the place for you. Art school is a ton of fun but balancing schoolwork with self-care and outside activities is a challenge in itself. It can be done with discipline, but honestly not everyone is prepared. But then, most incoming collegians aren’t prepared XD This could have it’s own full post, but I’ll stop here.-I for sure don't know enough to tell you which school is better. Using "better" as the determining factor is very weak and leaves room for too much subjectivity. Think about your personality and what you want to do in your future (or where you want to work eventually). Maybe that will help.

Absolutely nothing wrong with it, unless you consider any form of live feeding bad (e.g. live animals for pet cats or fish). The spider is going to eat the insects in any case, so you could argue it is morally better to spare the spider the work of hunting.From a pedagogical perspective, the child is going to learn a lot just looking at the spider eating. I have demonstrated this to schoolkids in class many times, and there are only ever two reactions: disgust and fascination. If that fascination spills over and turns the child into a budding naturalist who will go out and explore the biodiversity around them, then you have achieved a very positive goal. You may argue that a child's play is not worth the life of some insects, but as I said, those insects will have had the same slow death by spider anyway. Might as well put it to good use.Nature is often violent. Male bed bugs stab the females to have sex. The violence of vertebrates is often shown on any nature documentary: lions and other big cats hunting in the savannah, or most famously the gangs of chimpanzees going to war against neighbouring chimpanzee tribes.Shielding children away from this brings nothing. Let them see the world as it is. A few years ago, on a fieldtrip with teens, I came across an abandoned fresh carcass of a dog. Full of insects, tremendous educational opportunity. We examined the corpse, learned about entomological sampling and insect feeding preferences, brought many samples back for them to keep. Now one of those teens sends me e-mails telling me about how he is on track for specialising in forensic entomology.On another trip with kids, I came across a parasitised squirrel, could not move anymore and almost dead. I dissected it live in front of the kids to pull out the parasites and show them to the kids.In both cases, there were the disgusted spoilsports, but there were also gasps of fascination, and I bet at least one of those kids is looking to go into parasitology or zoology. That makes it worth all the parental complaints and calls for my chopped-off head.The trick is to not do anything cruel and out of the ordinary. A spider is a carnivore, so feeding it insects is normal. I cannot think of any negative effect this can have. Of course, caution should be exercised if it's a big or dangerous spider. Make sure the kid is wearing gloves just to be safe.

We’re currently working on a 3D immersive learning and VR authoring tool as part of a UK Government funded InnovateUK project. We open up to beta users next week so let me know if you’re interested. The environment is location based - and locations still need to be built by someone with 3D skills (eg Unity). However the learning layer is built using drag-and-drop and a forms based editor, so hopefully within the ability of any reasonably technically literate tutor. More information at www.fieldscapesvr.com. Although the current project is focussed on virtual fieldtrips the system could be used for almost any sort of immersive learning - and the exercises can be experienced both with and without VR headsets, and on smartphones as well as tablets and PCs.