Sad news passed my desk earlier today.
I received an email from Dr. Min Liu at the University of Texas-Austin that Dr. Michael Reed passed away yesterday on July 30, 2009. The email says that "while Mike had not been feeling well of late this was quite unexpected."
Mike was my mentor when I was a brand new faculty member at West Virginia University (WVU). He was the kindest person one could know. A gentle giant of sorts. He was also Min Liu's advisor at WVU before she left for Texas. His graduate students were treated as his children. And Min Liu was his top doctoral student and she remained that way for the next two decades. Needless to say, I bet she is taking this hard. Mike had much wisdom from his experiences to share with everyone around him. And I think he relished that role, despite being a pretty introverted person. It would have been great to have short videos in YouTube or TeacherTube of his sage ideas and mentoring. Perhaps someone has captured a couple that will be posted later on.
While countless people helped me before graduate school as well as during it, as I said, Mike was my first mentor "after" I graduated with my Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin in the summer of 1989. He met me the first day at Gibbies Pub and Restaurant in downtown Morgantown. We had a wonderful meal and a beer or two to down it with. More importantly, we discussed our common interests. The main one was reserch on computers and writing as well as cool writing technologies and applications. That was August 1989 or exactly 20 years ago. (I was 8-years-old then of course.) Unlike most busy faculty members, Mike knew I was in Morgantown and on campus before anyone else. In effect, he took me under his wing to help me succeed. He showed me how a more advanced faculty member should treat younger ones. And it was not just me who he welcomed in; Mike Reed went out of his way for anyone at any time. Students often waited in a cue outside his door. But again, they were his children, so they rarely had to wait too long.
There were many great faculty at WVU. I hate to name names since I will be leaving out too many people (though I must slip in a hello to Rogers McAvoy who helped hire me). But among the great WVU people was Mary Alice Barksdale. She just sent me this picture of her and Mike. Apparently, she had dinner with him last Wednesday night. Which was the night before his heart attack. So appropriate that she was the last person to do so. Mike did work the following day at Radford.
Thanks Mary Alice. What a dashing picture of Mike. Ok, it is the wee early hours of Wednesday August 5th and more pictures of Mike have arrived! Mike did like to travel and see the world. James (Jim) Takacs, Executive Director, Florida Center for Instructional Technology, College of Education, University of South Florida, sent the pictures. He and Gail Fitzgerald (formerly of WVU and now at the University of Missouri) traveled with Mike to Germany and Austria and then later Jim traveled with Mike to Ed Media in Seattle in 1999 (which may be the last time I saw Mike). Jim said I could share these pics in this blog.
According to Jim, the first pic, "was taken on a horse and buggy ride we took to the Neuschwanstein Schloss (castle). Gail [Fitzgerald] took that photo of us in the carriage and mailed it to me after the trip."
In this second picture, "Mike, Gail, and Jim are at a late lunch out on the sidewalk at Munsterplatz in Freiburg, Germany. The Cathedral in the background was under construction."
Per Jim, the third picture in this sequence he sent me "was taken at the Heidelberg Castle in Heidelberg, Germany." Now that is a place I wish I had visited. Cool!
The fourth pic "was taken on the Zugspitze--The highest mountain in Germany. It's near the Austrian border and Garmisch-Partenkirchen." There is no doubt from looking at this picture that is was a stellar trip!
The 5th and 6th ones, according to Jim, "Are photos of Dr. Reed and Gail getting ready for their presentations at the 1999 Ed-Media Conference in Seattle, WA, thus him wearing the suit and tie."
The first is of Mike. As I said, I think that may be the last I saw of Mike and he was in fact wearing that suit. Ten years it has been. I tried to see him at NYU a few years ago but it was Christmas break and he was not in. Regrets now exist as I am sure many people reading this blog now have.
When Mike was not traveling, he was well known for his writing and computers research as well as that on hypermedia tools for writing and collaboration. And my dissertation was on computers and writing. I guess he was glad to see me arrive so he could share his research passions with someone. I fully understand that feeling. In 1992, Mike and I edited a special issue on writing research (my first special issue). Here is the introductory article we wrote for that issue.
Reed, W. M., & Bonk, C. J. (1992). Computers and writing research: Extending agendas across ages. Computers in Human Behavior, 8(1), 1-7.
We got many of the authors for that special issue to present at the Eastern Educational Research Association meeting in Boston in February 1991 (a regional conference of AERA). Our session at the conference was called Computers and Composing Across Curriculum. Mike twisted my arm into the role of discussant. He did not have to twist too hard. But it was my first experience as discussant so I did need a few courage pills. Fast forward to today and, in retrospect, I see myself trying to get younger colleagues similar roles at conferences as discussants, chairs, presenters, and what-nots. Some prefer being "what-nots" but most appreciate getting a chance to speak in front of others. Suffice to say, Mike's influence lives on and on and on and on.
Two years after the special issue, I published an article in another special issue journal Mike was editing; this time he was working with John Burton from Virginia Tech and Min Liu from UT Austin. This special issue also became a book. Funny, right now I am editing a special issue of a journal on e-learning in Asia which will also be a print-in-demand book. Life goes in cycles.
Bonk, C. J., Medury, P. V., & Reynolds, T. H. (1994). Cooperative hypermedia: The marriage of collaborative writing and mediated environments. Computers in the Schools, 10(1/2); 79-124.
As noted, the above article also can be found in the following book: W. M. Reed, J. K. Burton, & M. Liu (Eds.) (1994). Multimedia and megachange: New roles for educational computing (pp. 79-124). NY: Haworth Press., ISBN: 1-56024-693-6.
That was a thick book. I quite vividly remember when it arrived in the spring of 1995 and I passed it around my graduate seminar on "Interactive Technologies for Learning and Collaboration." I was quite proud to have a chapter in his book. In retrospect, it was one of my few publications prior to tenure and I was about to go up for it the following year so I really really needed that one. Mike was there for me even though I had moved from WVU to IU. I soon followed in his footsteps by doing an edited book on emerging online collaborative technologies ("Electronic Collaborators") in 1998. The Interactive Technologies for Learning and Collaboration doctoral level course was actually something that I had co-designed with Mike back at WVU. We team taught it one semester there. As with the course on cognition and memory I had team taught at WVU the semester before with Dr. Richard (Dickie) Walls, I was learning from the master how to teach.
Before creating the class, Mike and I had traveled in 1990 to San Diego for a special 2-3 day workshop on artificial intelligence in education that Chris Dede and others were putting on. It was a great setting near the downtown harbor in San Diego. The content we got from the workshop highly influenced that course. It was fun to teach as a trial course. So much fun, we decided to complete the silly forms to make it a listed course in the department. A few months after we got it approved as a permanent course at WVU, I left for Indiana and started teaching it there. I taught the class for 10 years based on the design Mike and I created. In 2002, it was transformed into a course on "E-Learning Pedogogy and Evaluation." Today, this course has morphed into one titled "The Web 2.0 and Participatory E-Learning" which is linked off my homepage (http://mypage.iu.edu/~cjbonk/).
And I guess I just realized why this course is highly linked to my new book, "The World Is Open: How Web Technology Is Revolutionizing Education" (http://worldisopen.com/). It is the latest in a chain of influences dating back to that time with Mike from 1989-1992. So anyone at IU who has taken one of these courses with me or who will take different versions of it in the future, will have been influenced by Mike Reed. Ditto anyone who reads the "World Is Open" book. Mike's interests in the impact of technology tools and resources on human learning is a part of every page of that book and every week of the Web 2.0 course. And having that internal muse from remnants of conversations and activities with Mike Reed, as you can see, is a very good thing.
More on Mike...In addition to editing books and special issues and team teaching with people like me, Mike was pumping out research in the late 1980s and on throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s. There were also multiple piles of papers collected (i.e., research data) that sat near his office. Still, when I was at WVU, Mike would always take time to meet with anyone at any time. Each human being was important. He supervised the computer lab and had a big office so everyone stopped by. And people poured into his office. One right after another. I am not sure how he got any writing done, but he definitely did. In fact, he likely published more papers than anyone in the College of Human Resources and Education (HR&E) during the three years I was there.
I left WVU and came to Indiana University in 1992. The year after I arrived, there was a position that opened up in Language Education. I nominated Mike as well as my colleage Tom Reynolds. Both got interviews. Neither got the job--it went to the 3rd candidate. That was unfortunate. I remember that Mike’s luggage never arrived during his time at IU and he was also suffering from a bad cold. That definitely did not help his chances (just envision someone coughing constantly and wearing the same clothes each day during a 2 day interview). So, instead, Mike went to NYU.
Here is a picture I found online of him at NYU and a brief bio since the remaining part of his bio was on a page that is no longer accessible.
NYU was lucky to get him! In his bio at the NYU Website, it says that "W. Michael Reed, Professor and Director of the Educational Communication and Technology Program, has focused his recent research on hypermedia/multimedia development and developers' learning styles. Over the past 20 years, Dr. Reed's research has focused on problem-solving and authoring, integrating technology in teacher education, and cognition and hypermedia..." As I indicated, the continuing page is no longer available but you can get a sense of his interest areas and places of expertise. Here is another page I found:
New York University
Steinhardt School of Culture, Education and Human Development
Department of Administration, Leadership, and Technology
Program in Educational Communication and Technology
Contact Info:
Dr. Michael Reed
Director
New York, NY 10012-1019
Phone: 212-998-5520
Fax: 212-995-4047
Email: w.michael.reed@nyu.edu
Mike participated in a "Teaching More Effectively With Technology" Conference in April 2001. The article I found his picture below starts off saying: "On Wednesday, April 11 and Thursday, April 12, 2001, the newly established Center for Teaching Excellence at New York University, in cooperation with Information Technology Services, the NYU Libraries, the Faculty Resource Network and the Humanities Council, organized and presented Teaching More Effectively With Technology: A Conference and Exhibition at New York University, a high-level, major initiative by NYU to focus on the role of technology in teaching."
Figure 2. After a question and answer period, Michael Reed of the NYU School of Education (far right), delivered a talk entitled "What the Research Shows". (On the left, Sharon L. Weinberg; in the center, Marc Hamilton.)
It is good to see that Mike has his typical wry smile on his face. He knew what the research said. He definitely knew. Mike Reed conducted some of the most rigorous research on computers and writing that I know of.
He was also a great listener. During my 3 years at WVU, he had to listen to me and my naive statements over and over and over. He recently retired from NYU. But Mike was not done as he took a position as administrator in the Institutional Review Board at Radford University. Radford was in the part of Virginia where he had moved to. Any complaints or questions on one's IRB, and they apparently were referred to Mike Reed. Yes, he could handle such complaints. Here was his contact info:
For questions please contact:
W. Michael Reed, EdD
Box 6926
Radford University
Radford VA 24142.
(540) 831- 5290
wreed11@radford.edu
Mike did not leave a heavy footprint on the Web. I emailed him on July 6th, 2009 and asked if I could send him my World is Open book but he did not reply (he rarely used email—so I did not hear back). It is too bad we did not get a final chance to correspond. But I will have to assume he read my email. We will never know. Mike will be dearly missed. We used to play tennis once-in-a-while when I was at WVU. He was a big guy. That was intimidating. He could whack the crap out of the tennis ball. He would have me running from side-to-side. And even though he was known to smoke quite a bit, he could still whip me in tennis.
He also could write. Wow, he definitely could write. He was a journalist in the army. He always told me that when he retired he wanted to write novels. I hope he got a chance to. If anyone reading this blog knows the answer to that question, please send me an email.
(Note: An answer to this query arrived a few hours later from his (and my) former student, John Oughton. Per John: "I wanted to mention that Mike did indeed publish a book in 2001 entitled Kelly Barracks under the pseudonym R. P. Michaels. I found this link on Amazon to the book:"
http://www.amazon.com/Kelley-Barracks-R-Michaels/dp/0595171419/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1249180880&sr=8-1
I just ordered the book! The Web is so cool! I cannot wait to read it. Thanks John! I miss you too and your softball skills.)
Wow, today is August 9, 2009 and my special issue of Mike's Kelley Barracks' book has arrived. And, to my surprise when I open it up, it has Mike's signature. Wow! So cool to have it. And, no, it is not for sale. Great book, by the way.
I also remember Mike receiving a Fulbright award to live in Finland for a bit. I think it was Jyvaskyla. Yes, that was the place. He was so looking forward to it--he had his time there completely mapped out months before going. He gleefully showed me that map many times before he left. He loved it there. And they loved him. I had a similar reaction to Finland. So relaxing. And many fun people. The Fins are sorta like Mike--into technology, quiet and shy (until you get to know them and then they open up and you are friends for life), know the research, conduct thoughtful studies, and like a good beer. And I later had a collaborative research project with the good folks of the University of Jyvaskyla (the University of Oulu as well) on case-based learning online. Mike helped me make connections with a few people there before my travel to Finland in the spring of 1997. My kids even came on that one. Indirectly, Mike helped make that a smooth and fun trip.
Jim Takacs posted a comment to my blog about Mike. He took Mike's picture when he was not expecting it. He sent me links to the following 3 pictures. This one shows the friendships he had. I have a similar picture from Paris in February or March of 1992 with Mike which I will try to find and scan.
Jim noted that Mike often did not like his picture taken. You can see the look on Mike's face when he did.
But this reveals the bright and smiling Mike we all knew! According to Jim Takacs: "That photo was taken in October 1995 on a conference trip in West Virginia." It is one the best pics he found in his collection of Mike Reed photos. He has a few more that might be shared later.
Thanks so much for the pics Jim. I hope we can get a few more.
Some Funeral Information: To remember Mike Reed and to pay tribute to him, Michael Orey from the University of Georgia has formed a Facebook group for Mike Reed. Thanks Mike. Mike also planned for everyone in the world to toast to Mike at 6 pm on Monday August 3rd. Liu Min told me that Mike funeral services are in Westover, West Virginia (next to Morgantown) on Friday August 7th at 1 pm with apparently some type of service the following day (Saturday the 8th) in Radford.
Per another former student Mike was extremely fond of (and for good reason), David Ayersman, the cemetery information for Westeover/Morgantown is:
Beverly Hills Memorial Gardens (Rick Overbaugh said it is at 1 pm)
1290 FAIRMONT RD
Morgantown, WV 26501
(304) 983-2233
Post Funeral Information: Per Mary Alice Barksdale: There will likely be a memorial service at Mullins Funeral Home in Radford at 11 on Saturday August 8th and then anyone who would like to get together should come over to her house after.
Donation/Contribution Information: This information came from Mike's brother, Skip. Also, Liu Min said that it was Dr. Reed's wish that instead of flowers that folks would send a donation to:
Pound Pals
P.O. Box 2851
Radford, VA 2414
pals@psknet.com3
http://www.radfordpoundpals.org/
According to the Pound Pals Website, "The core mission of Pound Pals of Radford, Inc. is the prevention of suffering, neglect, abuse and cruelty to animals by working in conjunction with our local animal shelter in all phases of animal placement and rescue. Pound Pals of Radford, Inc. is a private, non-profit 501 (c)(3) tax-exempt organization. Contributions are tax-deductible."
This definitely sounds like Mike. A very good spirit to all living creatures. Ok, now, make a contribution in Mike's name if you can. I am quite sure that will make him happy.
Tonight Jan Plass, colleague of Mike's from NYU, sent me a note that he is thinking of a way to remember Mike's scientific contributions. He said the following, "I could think of no better way to do this than to edit a volume in his honor to which his colleagues and former students would make contributions. Given his passion, the theme of such a volume could be Individual Differences in Multimedia Learning: Theory and Research. We could also organize a symposium that brings together his former students and collaborators and that could be the preparation for such a volume."
Jan (who is the Director, CREATE Consortium for Research and Evaluation of Advanced Technologies in Education, Co-Director, NYU Institute for Games for Learning at NYU) and I know it is quite early to think about this but I also know people are reading this blog post this week. I have had my TravelinEdMan blog for 4 years now but the past 2 days have been records for the number of visitors to my blog. It is clear that many people loved and respected Mike Reed. Jan also said we should think about who might contribute to such a symposium and edited volume as presenters, authors, editors, organizers, etc. More to come on that I am sure.
Note: For those of you returning to this blog, the insert above is an update to this blog post. There will be more I suspect. Mike is not going to leave any of any time soon.
I have heard Mike's voice in my head all day--actually for a few days now. He had an unmistakable voice. He might have made for a good radio personality with that voice. All the advice over the years is coming back to me. We had many a fine private chat in his private office (that means outside on the College of HR&E back patio where he could smoke and we could talk and relax. There were many people he would mentor out on the back patio. I also remember a few very chilly days back there).
Anyway, I miss him. I left WVU 17 years ago, but it seems like yesterday. Mike's warm acceptence of me was calming for someone who had just completed and defended his dissertation, adopted and baptized a son from Korea, held a huge party to celebrate each, sold a house, moved to a new place, and started a new job (all in a matter of about 2 weeks). I saw perhaps two dozen doctors during the preceding months to help with the stress. Meeting someone like Mike was the best medicine. We all need a Mike Reed around us. One who encourages, nudges, smiles, frowns (at the right moments), and quietly elevates everyone toward their highest goals. Thanks Mike. I am here because you were there (for me).
==============================================================================
Please Note: The following section was added on Wednesday August 12, 2009. It was written in response to an email that morning from Michael Orey and John Burton. They asked me to check over a bio of Mike Reed that John and Min Liu had drafted. They asked for my comments and potential additions. I wrote the comments below. It will appear as an addendum to an article in the Educational Media and Technology Yearbook (EMTY) 2010 or so I think. The title of that article will be: W. Michael Reed: At the Beginnings Using Computers in Education for Higher-Order Learning by Min Liu and John Burton. Again, what is below will likely be an addendum to that article. And I am sharing that insert with all of you in this blog. See what you think.
Reflective Addendum: Mike’s Life Compiled
As is clear, Mike was a builder, a composer, a designer. In a word, he was a doer. At its heart, Mike’s life was one of composition. He composed it as he went along and lived as he wished from start to end. But each day and each product must be seen for the greater whole. This is a man who wrote as a journalist for the U.S. Army in Germany. Countless newspaper articles and other documents were drafted, redrafted, approved, signed, and disseminated.
Knowing Mike, he was likely composing and recomposing them at each waking moment of day as well as in his sleep. After completing his army duties, he had the challenging task of teaching teenagers about the great works of Shakespeare and other compositions as a high school English teacher in Virginia. It is likely he touched many hearts and minds with his sage advice, keen insights, timely and heavy feedback. Perhaps more enjoyably he coached these kids in many after school sporting events.
When Mike left the world of an English teacher, he went on to write a massive composition called a dissertation as a graduate student at Virginia Tech. After successful defense, he crafted many other such types of documents when at WVU and NYU. During his time in academia, Mike trained dozens of other graduate students to write coherent, interesting, and seminal compositions of their own. His life of composing did not end when the research was completed. Often these works would end up as published papers in conference proceedings.
If you knew Mike, you would not be surprised by the fact that upon return from such conferences, he was not done. He would quickly assemble the troops for a special journal issue of their compiled papers; yet another form of composition. Once submitted, he was still not done! These journal issues often were reprinted a year or two after release as edited books, typically with colleagues and former students as co-editors. All the while, Mike was subtly teaching each of his collaborators and students the composing process. He was the grand maestro!
All aspects of his life were composition. All products--from his programming in Basic as well as Logo in his early academic years to his more rich hypermedia and multimedia designs--could be viewed as compositions. These were his works of art. His contributions to world. Ditto all the frameworks, models, and learning guides he built as well as the myriad journals he reviewed for. Compositions—all of them.
What’s more, much of this work was on the writing or composing process itself. Mike was, in fact, a writing researcher. And if writing is indeed thinking, Mike Reed was the consummate thinker. He not only was constantly writing or reading the writing of others, but was researching the entire shebang. In effect, he wanted everyone to know what good writing or composition was and was continually researching it, teaching it, and sharing it.
In addition to his life as an academic, Mike wanted to write the ultimate composition—the novel. And in 2001, he did just that! It was titled "Kelly Barracks." That was his masterpiece. His sonata. His magnum opus. With that, his life had come full circle, from one who was trained in how to write a composition as well as teach others about the process, to one who composes such wonderful displays of human intelligence for others to read, dissect, discuss, and reflect upon.
Without much doubt, there are some forms of composition within Mike’s life that are not mentioned in these brief paragraphs. Each person who was touched by him likely has his or her own stories involving one or more products or compositions of Mike’s life. These too should be added here for that is what a biography should be—a compilation of one’s life. And Mike Reed definitely compiled! He left us much to personally read, assign to our students, expand upon, and simply enjoy.
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