Another Wonderful Flight to Saudi Arabia! Not!!!

I had many a strange thing happen at each conference I attended or spoke at in 2005 (e.g., getting stuck on the balcony of the hotel in 110 degree heat and the door will not open), but 2007 has to be the year of air travel fiascos for me. I have had a series of plane adventures this year so I thought it was time to write one up. Since the year started, I have been stuck overnight in Gatwick Airport, sat on the runway for hours in Indianapolis and Chicago O’Hare Airport during snow storms, been forced to sleep overnight in Chicago, and experienced far too many flight delays. Every trip for the past 5-6 months has has some problems.

My latest fiasco was this week during a trip to Saudi Arabia where I was training English and Math teachers for Saudi Aramco how to be more learner-centered and to embed collaborative learning and technology in their teaching. Since this was one of the more interesting flights I have ever had and I had time to kill, I thought I would write it up and chronicle the journey in my blog.

1. April 18th: The Unexpected Exit: I should have known this would be a strange, when in my first leg of this journey in Indianapolis, a nervous elderly man asked to get off the plane after we had already started to leave the gate. Apparently, he felt claustrophobic and did not like his window seat. The plane had to go back to the gate and let the man off. Strange, strange way to begin this trip.

2. April 18th: The Wait: That did not delay us much and I had plenty of connection time in Cincinnati (more than 3 hours). What I did not expect is that Delta officials would decide to wait 10-15 minutes for a plane that was late arriving from Seattle. Apparently, many of the people on board had a connection to our flight to Frankfort. Unfortunately, these 10-15 minute soon resulted in a delay of more than a one hour. And when we had to taxi to a remote runway at Cincinnati, our delay time expanded even more. I looked at my watch repeatedly and said to myself, “Self, you will be running to the gate when we get the Frankfort.”

3. April 19th: The Missed Flight: My original schedule had 1 hour and 15 minutes for me to locate my flight in Frankfort; which, they assured me would be enough time when I booked the flight. Not! When our plane landed that morning in Germany, this layover was reduced to 15-20 minutes. As soon as I got off the plane, I ran to my exit, which was about 5-10 minutes away (if you ran really fast and ran over several passengers and people innocently walking to their gates). Despite wearing tennis shoes, I arrived at the gate only to find out that my plane had left already; i.e., it left early. I got there 10-12 minutes prior to departure but Gulf Air had already left for Bahrain. Ug, I hate Gulf Air! Same people that left 20 minutes early back in February when I had a tight connection in Istanbul. That time I made it; this time I did not.

4. April 19th: The Mad Scramble: Ok, my one day of touring Bahrain the following day seemed lost. Still, I ran down to the Delta terminal (which was not easy to find and required me to go through customs in Germany). Ok, is it in Hall A, B, C, or D? After explaining my situation to a couple of Delta agents, they were kind enough to place me on a Lufthansa flight to Bahrain that was leaving only 90 minutes after the one I was supposed to be on. Hooray, I finally had a stroke of luck! Unfortunately, they could not issue a boarding card. The Delta agent warned me that my return flight on Gulf Air might be canceled as a result and that I should see the Gulf Air agent across from her after she was done processing my ticket. So, I ran to the Gulf Air counter to explain the switched flight and they were, of course, closed. Ug! So I proceeded to the Lufthansa terminal or Hall to retrieve my boarding pass. Plane was leaving in a little over 1 hour. When I got there, the lines were so long that there was really no hope that I would make this connection either. So I went to the Lufthansa ticket agent and explained my situation. He told me to jump to the business class waiting line with his permission. So I got my ticket and ran to the gate. Sweat was pouring off my body after this run. Bags were checked and they explored a few of my props for my talks but were ok with them and I proceeded to the gate.

5. April 19th: The Screaming Boy: The Lufthansa flight was great since I had 4 seats to myself. Ah, time to sleep! Not so fast, there was a screaming boy sitting right behind me. Seemed that every time I was fading off to sleep, he would let out a huge scream. Oh my, my, my, my ears! But still I did sleep and we made good time to Bahrain.

6. April 19th: The Canceled Flight: When I got to Bahrain, I checked with their information desk and found out that, indeed, my return flight was canceled. The agent indicated that my entire trip back home was canceled, not just the leg on Gulf Air. At least that is what I could understand from him. I am not exactly sure what he was saying given that English was not his first language. I think he said that Delta had failed to process my ticket in a timely manner, and hence, I was canceled for my return. So, on to my hotel I went but without knowing if I would get home or not a week later.

7. April 22nd: The Powerless Phone Call: A few days later, I had to call Delta to see what happened and I was not feeling well. I had a extremely sore throat, sinus problems, and other cold-like symptoms and a serious lack of sleep. The first night with Delta I was on hold on and off with them for an hour, and, while they admitted to the problem, they were having difficulty rerouting me or reconfirming me. So I sat and sat and sat on the phone with them. Then the phone I had borrowed ran out of power and so nothing had been done though they did have my email address in case they found something.

8. April 23rd: Reconfirming Delta’s Mistake: The next night it was 2 more hours of such phone conversations. I knew that it would be a long time since the Delta representative said that she would have to sit down for this one. And eventually, she would have to contact her supervisor. This seemed endless—every 10-15 minutes they would come back on the line and say, we are still checking sir so no worries; we just wanted to let you know that we are still working on it. Of course, they wanted me to tell them the story of what happened to me each time so that they could verify that Delta was at fault. Finally, after what seemed like days on the phone, they indicated that I been rebooked on the original flight but in a different class of service (not that I would notice). Keep in mind that I was pretty sick during all these calls and I was borrowing someone else’s phone since my Verizon mobile phone does not work in Saudi.

9. April 24th: Confirming the Reconfirmation: Once I had been rebooked, I had to get to a travel agent to pick up the new ticket. Fortunately, Saudi Aramco gave me an assistant, Brian Clouse, who picked up my ticket when I was conducting my workshop in Jeddah (my 4th workshop of 5). My voice was going hoarse that day as their microphone did not work. Still, the travel agent which handled the ticket said to call Delta to reconfirm my reconfirmation. So Brian and I did just that.

10. April 25th: Facing Four Flights? Ok, the workshops I conducted went really well and it was time to come home. But I had to come back through Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, where my final workshop took place. This meant 4 flights; one to Bahrain, one to Frankfort, one to Cincinnati, and one to Indianapolis. Then, of course, the drive home.

11. April 25th: First Flight, Worst Flight: There was concern that I would make my flight in Riyadh since I was doing training one end of the city for Saudi Aramco English and math teachers (actually outside the city) and I had to get to the opposite side. So we left quickly. Not much traffic and we got to the airport by 3:30 for a 5:20 flight. Unfortunately, my Saudi Arabia Airlines ticket was actually with my old friend Gulf Air (see #3 above). I sat in line for 20-30 minutes before I figured this out and was told to head to a different terminal and find Gulf Air. Well, the line going through initial security was extremely heavy there, so I got me a airport helper (with official helper blue shirt) who required a fee to push me through faster. He got me to the first class desk in fact, though I do not know if I paid him in Saudi money or money left from Bahrain. Who cares, I was in line and I had passed 100 or more people still waiting to go through the initial security line (which actually does nothing). Unfortunately, I was in the wrong line and found out that our flight was delayed for 3 hours. One Saudi gentleman was extremely upset with this and screaming at the top of his lungs at the Gulf Air officials. He wanted to be let know of this delay much earlier in a text message; not when he got to the airport. I have never seen so much yelling from one person at an airport. I had to hold back from laughing. Many others were upset as well. Most just said that Gulf Air tends to do whatever they want and really have no schedule. I found this out—our 3 hour delay soon become 5 hours or so. I had an 8 hour window in Bahrain so I did much care since I had to wait somewhere. Unfortunately, their free wireless service in the Riyadh airport was slow (I tried to download one web page or 1 email for 15-20 minutes and gave up).

12. April 25th and 26th: More Gulf Air, Oh No!: When I got to Bahrain, I still had 2-3 hours to kill. Of course, with Gulf Air you never know and they added 90 minutes to this delay. I make a vow, Gulf Air no more. Sometimes they leave earlier than scheduled but more often late (and when they leave early, I am usually the one running to the gate and finding out that the plane has already left). Still, this delay gives me time for a wonderful dinner overlooking the airport on the 4th floor of the concourse and I find time to read a book on self-publishing. And I have a beer since I could not have any in Saudi Arabia.

13. April 26th: Next Up, Frankfort again and Another Screaming Baby: Time to depart for Cincinnati. We board on time! This is a first! And, to my surprise, I am in luck with a whole row of 3 seats to sleep on. The flight attendant smiles at me and says that I have a bed to sleep on. Oh no, she decides to move a family with a screaming baby to the empty row or seats in front of me. And he screams and screams and screams. Still, I did get some much needed sleep. I think I was awake for 1 or 2 hours of this 9 hour flight.

14. April 26th: On to Indy: Well, in Cincinnati, I had to go through security with my bags, just as I had done in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Germany. I think my bags should be fine by now. Again we board on time and I enter the little plane to Indianapolis now and consider myself quite lucky. I have just this short leg left. Cool!!! And we got back in plenty of time. Finally, a good flight. And finally home!

Memories of Chris Essex, a close friend, doc student, and colleague...

Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Memories of Chris Essex, a close friend, doc student, and colleague...

I got some early news (not good news) today from Joyce Alexander, department chairperson of Counseling and Educational Psychology, that one of my IST doc students and close friends, Chris Essex, had passed away the night before, April 17, 2007. He was still a very young man with so much potential and a dissertation waiting for him to complete. How does one cope with such news? What does one do? Immediate reactions to messages such as this are sorta blank and lifeless as you hear about them in the midst of 50 other things and there is no one immediately next to you to talk about it. Then, perhaps a few minutes, perhaps a few hours, or perhaps a few months or more, it starts to sink in. You will not see him physically again, though he will appear in the many works he has accomplished and the stories that we have to tell about him. As I note below, Chris had many accomplishments and we will tell many stories about him.




Some pics from a memorial for Chris are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/travelinedman/sets/72157600516966387/

I did a voice link to Chris in Voice Threads at: http://voicethread.com/
http://voicethread.com/maker.php?b=2995



1. Chris as English Teacher: I am now stuck in the Cincinnati Airport on way to Bahrain and then Saudi Arabia to train English teachers in active teaching techniques; many of which will entail emerging technologies such as podcasts, wikis, and blogs. Given this focus, it is Chris who should be here doing this training. Chris knows all the technologies one could ever want to know. And he was an English teacher. He knows pedagogy too! I was never an English teacher. I know in my heart that Chris would be able to run these workshops so much better than me. Lots of exciting ideas but without overwhelming them. He could speak to them 1-1. Now I have that challenge in front of me to be like him

2. Chris as Faculty Consultant: Keep in mind that Chris would be someone I would talk to when I got back to let him know what happened. He always kept an open door and a cool glass one at that. People could just show up with a problem or an issue and he would listen attentively and give them candid and calm feedback and guidance. When I stopped by (which was pretty regularly), he would be interested in whatever happened to me in my recent teaching or training. Now he is not here for such support and advice and story sharing. His kind ear is gone. And I am not the only one. Many of my colleagues sought out Chris for advice on a weekly if not daily basis. He knew his stuff and more than that. Sure that was his job—to support faculty in integrating technology—but unlike many in such a position, he was born for this job.

3. Chris as Friend to Visiting Scholars: It is not just faculty and students who need Chris, but also all the visiting scholars who come to IU for a visit. Does anyone have a count of all the people that Chris would mentor or meet with on an annual basis in the IC office? There is rich intellectual capital we have lost here. I have brought visiting scholars from Senegal, Italy, Korea, Thailand, Japan, Australia, the UK, Canada, China, South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Belgium, and many other parts of the world to meet with Chris in the Instructional Consulting office. Karen Hallett has had her share of high quality, sharing people working for her in IC, but Chris undoubtedly was at the top of the list. (Note: a final picture I had of Chris from January 2007 with people from the e-Read Ohio Program is below. Chris had just finished showing the them ideas for podcasting, online assessment, videochat, and other cool technologies.)





4. Chris as the Epitome of the Money Spent to Build the IU School of Education: There have been many changes in the School of Education at Indiana University during the past decade. If you think about it, other than perhaps Drs. Appelman and Frick, Chris Essex was the one constant in terms of innovation with educational technology in the School of Education that you could take people to meet during the past decade. I have had many visitors so I know. All the other innovators have either retired or moved to a different office, school, department, or university. Not Chris—you could still find him in the IC office. If you were visiting the School of Education and interested in technology in education, and keep in mind that the School of Education was built to promote technology in education, you just HAD to stop and see Chris Essex. Yes, we have the Center for Research on Learning and Technology (CRLT) and before that the Center for Excellence in Education (CEE), but the CRLT has been moved to Eigemann Hall and the CEE was disbanded long ago. The only cool technology stuff left in this School of Education (again a building built to showcase technology in education—in case anyone forgot) was being done my one man—Chris Essex. He was the lone beacon of light that I could see and take people to. He was a guaranteed stop on the IU tour for all prospective students, visiting scholars, and other expert visitors. The goodwill he generated by taking time to show tools such as Eval Online, the videostreaming that IC did, and the podcasts was invaluable.

5. Chris as Online Learning Course Promoter and Organizer: Chris and I go back perhaps 10 years or more. I am not sure the exact date or place we met. I am pretty sure if was sometime when Chris was indexing the online courses Dr. Karl Smith in language education. Shortly after that, he indexing and promoting of online courses in the School of Education began to expand to other department. It was then that he began asking people like Jack Cummings and I, who were teaching online ed psych courses, just what we were doing. He helped promote our courses and make them better when we asked him for advice. That was in 1997 and 1998. I think Jack dabbled in the online world just prior to that in late 1996 and then he told me I should teach online as he was about to become an associate dean or something stupid like that. But with the support of people like Chris Essex (and Karen Hallett’s entire office), it was a great experience to teach online. Those experiences and conversations about effective online pedagogy resulted in Chris and I becoming close friends. My time here in the Cinci airport is not enough to document it and I do not have a spell checker (smile) but I am trying. As everyone knows, Chris Essex was extremely conscientious, well organized, a voracious reader, and someone who passed along information to those in need.

6. Chris as Rock Music Junkie: His sweeping long hair was a giveaway as to aspects of his personality and hobbies. As many of us know, Chris loved his music; especially rock from the 60s and 70s. He often told me that his older brother was influential his musical tastes. If there was a Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, or David Bowie concert or tour that was announced, Chris already had his tickets ordered before the rest of us even heard about it. As an example, last year (May 19th, 2006), he met me at Cheers Pub in London for dinner and a few beers; he had told me that he would be following Eric Clapton, Pink Floyd, and several other rock groups around at the time, so we arranged a meeting. Brian Ford, a long-time BBC personality and I waited for Chris for what seemed a long time. I was amazed he showed up at about 6 or 7 pm that night just as my friends and I were about to leave. He livened up the room with his stories of his travels and why he was late and his intended rock concert scenes. We all stayed for 2 more hours to listen to Chris. Later Chris and I found a comedy club in London which I know Chris also was a fan of. Unfortunately, his plans to visit the UK this May for still more rock concerts will not happen.






7. Chris as Conference Presenter: I have seen Chris at many conferences and situations outside of the School of Education. He always represented us well. In the early years of online learning, Chris kept me up-to-date regarding technology and online learning conferences. One such conference was Ed Media. I remember how excited he was that we would both be attending the Ed Media conference in 1999 in Seattle. Chris arranged a dinner meeting for some IU students (John Savery, Chris, Kurshat, and me) during the conference. I remember that dinner and conference fondly and went to the next 7 Ed Medias as well thanks, in part, to Chris’ initial prompting to go. Two years later, in August 2001, Chris presented with me at the Wisconsin Distance Teaching and Learning conference in Madison. We each took 20-30 minutes and presented our data on the state of e-learning in higher education and corporate training. Remember that this was 2001—the exact time that universities and corporations were trying to figure out how to strategically plan for online learning. Chris helped me design the survey instruments we used in this huge study as well as analyze the data and write it up. He had all the insights we needed as to what to ask and then later present. The talk was packed with people who wanted to know the state of e-learning back then. Without bragging too much now—we dazzled them. We had a similar presentation at AERA the following spring though I do not think it compared with the enthusiasm we felt in Madison the prior August.

8. Chris as Podcaster: For the past 2 years, Chris Essex has been the voice of my podcasts. He would ask preset as well as spontaneous questions and I would answer them as ways to relate to the students in my class the issues and content for the week. More importantly, Chris created 20 lessons for anyone to use on podcasting in our instructional consulting office (seehttps://www.exchange.iu.edu/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.iub.edu/~icy/podcast/index.html). It is an impressive collection of ideas which I have referred many people to. In part it is successful since Chris has a broadcast quality voice for his podcasts. He was a natural. No nerves. In part, it was successful as a result of the time and effort Chris put into these productions. He knew his stuff. And he marketed it to faculty in a nice way. I always looked forward to my podcast days with Chris. We could plan something out at 1:30 and be on the air as it were at 1:35. He was quick with the technology yet never too fast for one to understand. He taught me a lot about how to do a quality podcast. The 20 lessons he created should be archived and transcribed and turned into a book with a coinciding online resource site. This could be a project for an IST student. I am sure one would jump at this or I hope so. And the dean's office might provide a couple thousand dollars to fund this. There are dozens of possibilities with this content.

9. Chris as Teacher to K-12 Kids as well as Adults: I have spoken to many people whose kids had Chris as their teacher in summer camps. And the kids loved his teaching of multimedia and the latest technology tools. Chris definitely looked forward to teaching at Binford Rogers (and St. Charles I think) each summer. And the school looked forward to him. College students loved his online courses as well. I heard from 1-2 weeks ago when presenting at Purdue. She spoke extremely highly of him. Everyone is or now I say was excited by his teaching. It is sad he will not teach anymore. We are very sad.


10. Chris as a Lifelong Learner: Despite his expertise and having been in many of my classes before, he would sit in on one of my classes. He was one of the best students in those classes--a high participator and willing to take risks. See Chris is the funny hat for an activity below from this class.








As shown by the pic below, Chris was in my classes since at least 1999. Chris is on the right--4th from right on top.




11. Chris as Believer in Free and Open Educational Resources: Chris also helped me in my research--whenever I had a question or an idea that involved online learning or technology, I could run it by him. He also helped me develop cool technology tooks. When I wanted to create some free websites for others like LibraryShare, BookstoreShare, SurveyShare, or InstructorShare, Chris jumped in to help. He was at the first mtgs I had to create a company to help faculty share online contents back in December 1999. And he helped me develop the tools for free sharing of ideas by faculty around the globe. We had meetings after work, on weekends, and at lunch. He always was willing to help. Today this is called the free and open educational resource (OER) movement. With free MIT courses online, this is huge. Back in 1999, Chris could see the potential. He always had the insights to help push these projects along. And as an English teacher, he could edit all the text and help systems we wrote. He had quite an eye for editing text. I trusted Chris with many a document.

12. Chris as Videostreamer: I deeply appreciate the fact that Chris went out of his way to promote my classes and talks to others. But he did that for many people. I think he did this for everyone. There are dozens of interesting talks by faculty in the School of Education that are catalogued and indexes due to Chris Essex, Without him, none of this would have been done. For instance , there is one talk he had me do a couple of years ago related to 100 ways making lectures more engaging since he heard I had done the talk over in the HPER building. He wanted me to repeat it as part of the Instructional Consulting office videostreams. Chris believed in videostreaming as a way to promote the School of Education and the IC office but more importantly as a way to get information out to the masses.. While only 1 adjunct faculty and 3 doc students from IU showed up, since Chris videostreamed it, I continue to get people writing to me from around the world about that talk. Just this week, the people at Wikiversity told me that they have indexed it.

13. Chris as Helper: People—my how Chris helped people. He helped kids with emerging technology courses in summer. He helped faculty looking to integrate technology in their courses. He helped students with their technology problems. He helped those in his office understand what the IC office does. He helped the Dean’s office index and market online courses when these things were new to everyone. He provided help to visiting scholars as I noted before. He gave talks in my classes and others when asked. Clearly, Chris touched so many people.

Suffice to say, Chris Essex was a great friend of mine. Kind, helpful, and willing to do a podcast or anything with technology with me whenever I asked. He will be missed by many and in many ways. More than most would immediately think of. As the days scroll by, we will all realize just how many ways Chris touched us and others around us as well as those outside the immediate IU community. Chris never saw a piece of technology he did not like. He never saw a human being he did not like. He never saw a pedagogical idea he did not like. We/I miss you Chris. Sorry I am not able to attend his memorial.

Self-Directed e-Learning at Saudi Aramco

1. Saudi Reflections…
   My visit to Saudi Aramco for the Corporate e-Learning Forum was interesting and exciting. This talk was sponsored by the Corporate Integrated Learning Services (CILS) people. Two key people from CILS took great of me—Virginia Charlton and Ken Huffman. I did 4 different talks there. I will post 3 of the 4 talks at my archived talks site; see http://www.trainingshare.com/workshop.php.
   
   Talk #1: The first one was on best practices in the design and delivery of instruction. This one seemed to be well received by the 90-100 people in the audience. I changed it at the last minute so that people could select from any of 10 topics for me to discuss. We got through 8 of them (we did not do #9 and #10 though #10 is perhaps my main expertise). The 10 topics are listed below.
   
   Talk #1: Best E-Learning Practices: Ten Key Areas
   1. Instructional Design
   2. Next Generation of Learners
   3. Multimedia, Animations, and Dual Coding Theory
   4. Interactivity
   5. Motivation
   6. Learning Styles
   7. Blended Learning
   8. Creating Learning Communities
   9. Synchronous/Virtual Learning
   10. Instructor Supports (facilitation/moderation skills)

Instructor Supports (facilitation/moderation skills)

Talk #2: The second one was on strategic planning for e-learning with the General Manager of Training at Saudi Aramco. I did not know about this talk until the last minute—after starting on my flight journey to Saudi Arabia--So I put it together on the plane. That took every ounce of battery life! Seems that they are interested in what other companies are doing in the e-learning space. Simulations and gaming are among their key interests now. Here are the 15 topics that I prepared to discuss (I got through about 8-9 of them—we did NOT go in order):

Talk #2: Strategic Planning Topics and Areas for E-Learning

1. e-Learning, Blended (B) Learning
2. Ubiquitous (U) Learning, Mobile (M) Learning
3. Informal Learning, Formal Learning
4. Audio (A) Learning, Visual Learning
5. Scenario Learning, Real World Learning
6. Simulations, Gaming, & Learner Interactivity
7. On Demand Learning
8. Next Generation Learning/Learner Diversity
9. Learner-Centered Learning
10. Learning Environments, E-Learning Systems
11. Learner Retention and Motivation
12. Learning Transfer to Job
13. Emerging Learning Technologies
14. Open Source Learning and Open Ed Resources
15. Learning Models

Talk #3: My third talk was a keynote for conference forum related to how the learning world has become flat. The title was “E-Learning Trends and Developments: Ten World of Learning Flatteners and Beyond.” The format is based on Thomas Friedman’s book, “The World is Flat.” The forum grew to over 300 people and needed an overflow room. Since Ken and Virginia had planned for less than that, they were quite pleased. Had some good feedback on this one. I will try to turn this one into an edited book.

The Ten Forces that Flattened the Learning World
1. Tools for Searching/Finding Media and Information Resources
2. Availability of Quality Online and Blended Learning Environments
3. Free and Open Source Software for Learning
4. Open CourseWare (free content)
5. Online Learning Object Repositories and Portals (shared content)
6. Virtual Collaboration Software (synchronous and asynchronous)
7. Online Massive Gaming, Simulations, and Virtual Worlds (e.g., Second Life)
8. Learning Mobility and Portability (low-cost mobile devices+wireless communication)
9. Personalized Learning Tools (Blogs, Podcasts, MySpace, Flickr, and RSS)
10. Open Information Communities (Wikipedia, Slashdot, Digg

Talk #4: My fourth final talk was on blended learning models, examples, and situations and solutions. The Saudi Aramco people were interested in this, in part, since they had read my Handbook of Blended Learning. We gave away 10 copies of this book during my 2 days in Saudi. Doing this particular talk was a great way to end my presentations there since I had done this type of talk many times before. I would have had 2 additional talks at King Fahd University of Petroleum and Minerals on Monday except that I got there a day late due to a snowstorm in Chicago.

Looks like I will be back in April to train English instructors at 5 Saudi Aramco camps/cities and May for the Arabian Knowledge Economy Association conference. Should be fun. Going back a 2nd time always is.

My observations when at Saudi Aramco: There is a special energy and enthusiasm at Saudi Aramco for the learning vision, cost effectiveness, support, and new directions that e-learning can provide. They have a pulse on what is happening in e-learning around the globe while designing and customizing activities, modules, and courses specific to the Saudi Aramco people. Many people are involved in e-learning and blended learning across the company—including folks from computer security, HRD, leadership training, employee relations and training, communications training, engineering, organizational development, exploration and production.

I even had a former student, Robert Harpool, from my 1992 class on educational psychology for secondary teachers (my first class ever at IU), show up for my keynote. Robert and I had a few great moments to reminisce. Robert did not recognize me since I no longer had curly hair and a moustache. The day before, I met Chris Wollack at Saudi Aramco schools where he is principal. Chris looked very familiar. In fact, we determined that he was in graduate school at the UW-Madison in 1986-1988 where he worked on his master’s in educational leadership in the School of Education at the same time that I was there for a master’s in educational psychology. He also worked in a school wherein I was sent to film effective teachers doing critical thinking. Small world.

Presentations from others at Saudi Aramco during the e-learning forum emphasized self-directed learning. It was clear to me that self-directed learning is a key facet of the e-learning vision and plans of Saudi Aramco. Learning opportunities are being made available today for the skill base of tomorrow. In my mind, the vision at Saudi Aramco is spot on for twenty-first century learning. Employees are in the midst of a training transformation where they are taking more responsibility for their own learning. E-learning is a key facet of this transformation.

From what I could tell, the range of e-learning courses areas and options at Saudi Aramco is mind boggling. Clearly, this is one company which is taking learning to the next stages and places that others too often resist and fear. Watch this company carefully!

My Major Flight Problems: My actual journey to Saudi was exciting and depressing both. Here are some notes from my journey:
I got stuck in Chicago hotel in a snowstorm after many hours on runway and with canceled planes and continual de-icing of our planes. I think I spent 6 hours on runways on Saturday. Missed my first day in Saudi. All nerves. But at least I got a hotel room! Some lady walked up to me with a hotel voucher for a Best Western that she got from American Airlines but was not going to use. I was so happy to get that!!!!!!!!!!!This made 3 straight trips with such problems. Last time I had to sleep at Gatwick airport due to strong winds which canceled our flight (though I slept in the airport Hilton). Coming home from Thailand was equally bad. This is getting very depressing. I am getting tired of such trips. I could have driven to Chicago and made my flight. I started to and then...ok, long story. But not all bad. I got a hotel room and the taxi guy did not kill us by driving so fast in the ice and snow.

Traveling on Sunday and Monday were better. Got a different flight through Frankfort and then Turkey. I made very good time. Was in 5 countries in 24 hours on 3 continents. USA, Germany, Turkey, Bahrain, and Saudi. I was the last one to board in Istanbul. Was on Turkish soil for perhaps 30 minutes. They left early since I think we had a princess from Bahrain in the front of the plane so I think they had to impress her by arriving 35 minutes early. Had to run to catch this flight from Instanbul to Bahrain since my flight from Frankfort was late. Wow that was close! Three people behind me were not allowed to board. The princess had first class all to herself. She smiled at me and then the flight attendants conveniently escorted me to economy class. Smile! Too bad, so sad. But I got to Bahrain by 6 pm instead of 8-9 hours later which would have been the next flight and I had a meeting at 7 am the following day so this was good. From Bahrain, a hired taxi driver drove me to Dharan.

All and all, I had a great time in Saudi Arabia though I ate too much chocolate to stay awake a nights and prepare my talks. I had not eaten much chocolate in 3 years. Had some great Lebanese food on Tuesday night!

Remember for PDF copies of my Saudi Aramco talks, please go to see http://www.trainingshare.com/workshop.php.

A Quick 30 Writing Tips for the Start of an Academic Career

My friend, Dr. Hye Yoon Jung, from Florida State University, just sent me an email asking for writing tips. She got her degree from West Virginia University (where I used to teach back in the stone age) roughly a year ago and so now she is starting to focus on publication opportunities. Her question is a common one--I get this questions every month from one of my doctoral students, one of my former students, or someone outside of IU. As a result, I thought that I might summarize some of the ten quick ideas or suggestions I gave her today and put these in my blog as well as ten additional ones that I thought of while writing this up and then 10 more later on. It is now are 30 ideas! (30 ideas--originally I had 10 but the list kept expanding and then 13 and then 20 and then 25 and now 30; who knows, perhaps we can get to 100! I guess when you get to 30 that they are not that "quick" anymore...). Perhaps more people can benefit from it or add to these ideas.

OK, time for "A Quick 30 Writing Tips for the Start of an Academic Career" by Curt Bonk, Indiana University (some of these have personal stories attached to them to make a point).

1. Edit your papers a lot (but, in truth, better to be a Combiner than a Mozartian or Beethovenian): A well written paper is half the battle. If you are not sure about your writing (grammar, style, content, etc.), have someone read through it. Perhaps 2 people (I come back to this issue in the next point). But edit and edit and edit some more. Sculpt a finely crafted work! I feel fortunate that I have become a pretty good editor--perhaps as a result of editing 2 huge book projects, including my recent Handbook of Blended Learning. 6-10 edits is not unusual for me. My most recent paper that was accepted for publication went through 17 rounds of edits over a 2 year span and one that a colleague and I submitted yesterday had about 9-10 revisions (so you might label me a Beethovenians; see below). If the paper reads well, then you have tackled a major hurdle. Writing research in the area of keystroke mapping (which allows you to replay back papers long after they are completed) from Lillian Bridwell and her colleagues at the University of Minnesota that was published about 20 years ago indicates that there are Mozartian writers who plan their writing in advance and can write in just one or two sittings very elegant text. They can compose complete sentences, paragraphs, and entire papers in their heads. And then there are Beethovenian writers who tinker at the point of utterance. Beethovenians obsess over every little word or phrase and edit and edit and edit some more. Combiners do both. Some of you are more like a Mozartian and pace back and forth before writing and then let it all go with your coherent plans and organizational schemes to create a lovely melody. And others are more like Beethovenian (and like me) who continue to edit and polish the text for long time. But as a young scholar in academia, it is best to be a combiner and do some of both; plan out your papers and write as much as you can at that first sitting and then, as the points below indicates, you can share it and tinker with it. Still at some point you must send it in for review. You will not get tenure with many nearly completed papers. I can testify to that! My best friend since my first week in graduate school at Wisconsin in January 1986, my #1 colleague, and one of the most wonderful people on the planet, Dr. Tom Reynolds, worked with me to verify some of this in our similar dissertation projects back in 1989 which was later published a mere 7 years later in this article: Reynolds, T. H., & Bonk, C. J. (1996). Creating computerized writing partner and keystroke recording tools with macro-driven prompts. Educational Technology Research and Development (ETR&D), 44(3), 83-97. See also http://www.springerlink.com/content/e7748hm5w74m6215/. Tom says his brother Ralph is a Mozartian, while Tom is perhaps a Combiner. Anyway, do a good job in editing your document before you turn it in (Side note: many of students who find it interesting that I have listed a point related to editing first.)


2. Get feedback: Sometimes you can get feedback from colleagues and experts on a topic as well as new graduate students and other people before sending it in. This helps to sharpen the focus of the paper. It is a test of the coherence or creativity of the ideas in the paper.


3. Stay Current: For instance, read current news related to your field and save it. You never know where you might be able to use it. I get a weekly list of current issues in e-learning, educational technology, technology, and simulations and gaming from Judy Brown at the Academic ADL (Advanced Distributed Learning) Lab at the University of Wisconsin. This gives me tons of new ideas for keynote talks, workshops, and papers. But it is a struggle trying to read through it all the time. I also get many articles from the USA today and from papers in foreign countries when I travel. I have an online PowerPoint file that I expand each week wherein I scan headlines and cool pictures and findings in hopes that those visuals might be used later in the year. Last year I accumulated over 500 slides of current topics. It helped with writing a book that I did in the fall.


4. Be part explorer: Explore new journals and resources when you can. Part of this keeping current is to occasionally walk through the current journal issues in your library and see what is being published. Also, take time to explore an educational Web site that you read about in an article or that someone sends to you. We are all explorers when we write. Personally, I am forced to read more when I write than before I write (see points on being a reader below). If you are not an explorer, you will not likely be a good academic writer; or at least one whom I would want to read from. Roger von Oech, creativity consultant, in his books, A Whack in the Side of the Head, and A Kick in the Seats of the Pants, indicates that this explorer stage is perhaps the most vital one in the creative process and the one many of us too often disregard; especially since we are so-called "to busy." Please do not be "busy"--instead, make a contribution to life. Kindergarten kids are busy; you are not. Now go off and explore a bit.


5. Be part bumblebee in gathering ideas from different places (and later part butterfly, moth, or bird): In addition to an explorer, you might also be a bumblebee and get ideas from different sources. For instance, at conferences, you might walk from room to room (stand in the back) and see what other researchers are talking about. This assumes that you can do this without being disruptive to the speaker (e.g., when it is standing room only and you are standing in the back of the room with the door open or in a large keynote session in the back). Normally, most speakers at conferences are boring. But if you listen to someone for 5-8 minutes, you can get some useful things from them in terms of what is current and what might be publishable down the road. In one hour, you might visit 4-5 different sessions. Take notes and compare them. Stephen Downes noted in his Old Dialy blog that this is being discourteous to the speaker. He is right. Still, he failed to note the following advice I had included: However, try not to be too disruptive to those sitting in for the entire session. Be courteous if you are to try to be a bumblebee. Bumblebees can also serve a purpose in cross pollinating ideas and move from room to room. Being a bumblebee also helps your social networks and gives you freedom to explore. Those looking for depth in a topic or discipline might shy away from being a bumblebee and sit in the entire session. You can read more about bumblebees in Harrison Owen's 1997 book called Open Space Technology. He also talks about butterflies. Butterflies who do not attend any conference session but attract attention and additional discussions. They are the conference within the conference. Sitting outside the door of sessions or in the pub most of the time. Junior faculty are more likely better off as bumblebees than butterflies, moths or some type oof bird (soaring above the rest) until they become experts in an area. Again, this strategy may not work for all people or all situations. The point, however, it is find many places or spokes from which to gather information.


6. Be a voracious reader (and ponderer): Reading is the most important aspect of an academic writing plan. Alvin Toffler, who wrote the book Future Shock (1970), The Third Wave (1980) , Power Shift: Knowledge, Wealth, Violence at the edge of the 21st Century (1990), and now Revolutionary Wealth (2006), says he simultaneously reads like 7 books and compares them in way to get novel writing ideas. You can do the same thing--read different articles from multiple journals. See what new connections you make. People make discoveries at the intersection of different disciplines. For example, the most recent article I submitted with Dr. Hee-Young Kim from SUNY Cortland incorporates a model from another field that we use to help explain instructional immediacy. Hee-Young found this article and made the creative linkage. Last Friday, one of my research teams presented a comparison chart of Randy Garrison's Cognitive Presence/Critical Thinking in Collaborative Critical Inquiry model and a scaffolding model from the Creative Waves project at the University of New South Wales which we were researching. They explored online discussion using each model using steps of the creative process and found some insites. It was just what we needed to start on the road to publication. If they had not read Garrison's work on critical thinking as well as the work on creative thinking, they would not have made the connection. Read! And also reflect or ponder and take notes on what you have read.
   



7. Persist like an ant: Did you ever watch an ant at work as a kid or as an adult. It is fascinating to watch them navigate around things in their pathways and still get their job completed. When I was around 6 or 7 years old, I used to make it difficult for those ants by putting up water barriers, rocks, and mud in their way, and, I hate to admit it, but I smashed a few with my basketball as well. I have some bad karma to repay yet. Anyway, they still completed their task. They were task focused. Now as a young scholar trying to publish, so must you be. There will be many things standing in your way to make if difficult for you. Higher education is replete with hoops and hurdles. Somebody above likes to make it difficult for us (i.e., the dean and academic provost and your colleagues and so on with all their forms and criteria, but they also want you to succeed or they would not have hired you or admitted you into graduate school and invested in you). So what can you do to persist? First of all, when you get feedback on a manuscript, make the changes recommended and send it back in even if it looks doubtful. And send them a list of what you have changed and addressed from their points. Hec, get to know the editor personally a bit and build rapport with him or her. Rich Lehrer, a former mentor at Wisconsin who is now at Venderbilt, once told me that every paper he worked on and address the reviewer comments was accepted for publication. My first 5-6 years after graduate school, I did not do this and it almost cost me tenure. Instead, I used to run from conference to conference and never really complete the conference paper in a format accepted for a journal but now I do. This tactic nearly cost me tenure. Watch out--do not go to too many conferences as a new person in a field unless you turn most of them into journal articles, book chapters, and perhaps even books. It is rare for me now to not have a paper get published but 10 years ago, it definitely was NOT the case. Persist! Be optimistic. And address those reviewer comments! Abide by most, if not all, of the journal guidelines (sometimes a paper can be longer than they state in the guidelines). And get things back fairly promptly. If your paper is close to being accepted, the editor may already be thinking about the issue in which he or she will publish it in once you get it back. So get it back!


8. Be creative in your figures, models, frameworks, charts, and graphs! This was not in my original list of 10 ideas but is too important to pass up mentioning (it also links to the story in #6 above). I find that papers which have a unique model, graph, chart, or figure tend to get published much more often than papers without such all-emcompassing and creative visuals. Spend some time thinking about what makes your paper or proposal unique. Sit in a closet if you have to and brainstorm all the possible ways. Lets say you want to publish 4-5 things a year. Well, all you have to do is sit in that closet 4-5 times a year and think really hard. Or brainstorm with colleagues and students. Conference lunches and dinners are great times for this!


9. Try to publish the paper or as a chapter before presenting at a conference (but after your conference proposal is sent in and accepted--i.e., do not scramble to write your conference paper at the last minute): Do not write up your research just for a conference paper. Once you submit your proposal to a conference and it is accepted, try to publish it. That way, you will have the paper done long before the conference arrives and you will not have to stay up all night writing the paper for the conference. (I am NOT saying to submit to a conference stuff that is already accepted--that would be unethical.) I have been lucky in this regard during the past few years; especially with AERA (American Educational Research Conference) papers. We have had papers published before the past 4 AERAs or our entire symposium panels have been asked to published our ideas in a special issue of a journal after it. It does pay off to be on panels with well connected people and with journal editors.


10. Maintain a list and network of potential research and writing collaborators: Take a moment and write down a list of all your potential reseach and writing collaborators. If you are a graduate student, be sure to list a least one graduate student colleague. These people will be your support group long after your mentors and advisors have retired and departed. And they will be good people to room with at conferences and to run research ideas by. You never know when you are going to need their support. I got a call from my graduate student colleague, Dr. Veronica Acosta Deprez at Cal State Long Beach this morning. Appropriate for this point, Veronica helped me with an important research and writing question that I had and then I helped her think about a study she might conduct on blended learning in public health. It works both ways. Once you have a list, update that list at least once per year. You will see that you likely have colleagues and contacts all over the world (this links to #15 below). This is the lovely part about being a faculty member in higher education today. A recent list of my 7-8 research teams on my office door indicated that. For instance, my blended learning study in five countries (Taiwan, China, Korea, the UK, and the USA), has people working on it from 5 different places and it is expanding to additional locales. With the Web, your colleagues can be anywhere!


11. Share your publication efforts: Share your writing and publications with people in your network (not blatantly like look at me but in a kind and courteous manner and when appropriate). Even this blog post, I contemplated who to share it with as well as who not to. We all have egos in higher education and have survived many rounds of competition so we can be prone to self-promotion. And there is a often a fine line between self-promotion and sharing knowledge. One solution is to have a place wherein your articles (those wherein you have permission) are made available to others and people can come and get them if they want. For instance, I have PublicationShare wherein people can find some of my articles and give me feedback (see http://www.publicationshare.com/). When you do that, then the network of potential collaborators grows some more!!!


12. Find emerging areas to research that you are passionate about or at least interested in: Take a moment and think about what the hot topics are in your field today and what might they be in 2, 5, or 10 years. Stephen Downes, in his Old Daily blog criticizes this point since he argues that one should be passionate in one's research and writing and not just explore hot topics since they are publishable. I agree with his point here. Be passionate about something--do not just enter it because you can. But if you are passionnate about a topic just slightly ahead of most, you will find yourself in a great situation for publishing. Now for me it is Wikibooks and synchronous learning, among other things. Wikibooks also offer me an opportunity to revisit my collaborative writing research and sociocultural research from 20 years ago while in graduate school and shortly after it. Wikibooks offer a goldmine of research possibilities. During a revision to this post I noticed that on Feb 1, 2007, and Penguin Books announces a Wiki novel, "A Million Penguins," (see www.amillionpenguins.com) and the day before MIT and Wharton School of Business announced a Wiki textbook they are doing with Pearson Publishing called We Are Smarter Than Me and have invited 1,000 authors to help out. As the rock group Buffalo Springfield (with Neil Young and Stephen Stills) noted back in the late 1960s, "There is something happening here, what it is ain't exactly clear." So much happening in this Wiki space to look at social negotiation, collaboration, communities of practices, legitimate peripheral participation, idea generation, cultural revolutions, etc. Wow! What will be the place for your revolution, goldmine, or exciting vein of research and writing? There are many opportunities out there waiting for you to find them. Always be on the lookout for cool and exciting new areas of research. So many things we can do! As I said before, be optimistic, and, of course, like a good ant, work hard and be passionate!


13. Think ahead about the publishing potential of each project: and Think about the journals wherein it might go before you start, while you collect data, and when you are done. Publishing should always be on your mind. Sure, things just come up and you go with them (for instance, right now Grace Lin from the University of Houston, and I are writing up some of our Wikibook research data for a book chapter opening that just presented itself). But you need a publication plan--i.e., what journal or book might it appear in. See my listing of e-learning and educational technology journals at http://www.trainingshare.com/resources/ and http://www.trainingshare.com/resources/distance_ed_journals_and_online_learning_books__Oct.htm


14. Treat graduate students as colleagues: I accept students for doctoral committees who already are or who can be my colleagues. My students are my colleagues. If you want to publish, working with really smart people helps. Of course, one could work with faculty colleagues. But I prefer to work with doctoral students over faculty for myriad reasons. Most faculty, for instance, have their own agendas and schedules. Many of the others have cycled through their the extent of the creative ideas that they have and no longer publish much; those that have not, are focused on their own stuff. In contrast, most doc students are hungry to research and publish with anyone. And, more importantly, students are usually nicer to work with than faculty members. (smile). I do continue to work with them after they have graduated. They do not typically become mean after the granting of a Ph.D. But for some reason, faculty members who are productive, kind, and fun to work with in one's own institution can be difficult to find. Don't get me wrong, I love my faculty colleagues (most of them). But they are usually working with their graduate students and research focuses. As my experience showed at WVU, some of the less productive and, not surprisingly, underpaid ones, work for Amway on the side. The most productive ones work 14 hour days 7 days a week and may not have time to collaborate with someone else. As the next point below indicates, when I work with faculty members on research and writing, they tend to be ones at other universities. For the most part, stick with smart graduate students and newly minted Ph.D.s. Even work with people who were not your graduate students but who others recommend to you. Consider post-docs who have funding and similar interests. And if you decide to work on a grant or research project with a faculty member at your own institution, be sure you are passionate about it and that you will gain something from it. Do not get suckered into someone else's research agenda. This happened to me at WVU and later on nearly cost me tenure. If you do not have graduate students, see post below.


15. Find international and national colleagues to work with: Your writing and research colleagues do not have to be at your own institution (links to #10 above). Most likely, they will not be even though your deans and administrators would prefer that all your research grant money stay in house. I have many fantastic and creative international colleagues with high energy. Go to international (and national) conferences and meet them! Exchange business cards and take them to lunch or dinner to find out more about their work. Create collaborations between institutions. Write this partership up! This makes life fun. And there are a growing number of international journals to publish in. You can also enter into interesting cross-institutional teaching ideas which may later be publishable.


16. Schedule time for writing: Xmas break and summer are huge times for this. I no longer teach in summers but when I did, I taught intensive courses so as to have time to write in the summer. I also tried to teach in bulk and put both of my graduate classes or both undergraduate on the same day back to back to save time for writing. This item (#16) may be the most impt thing other than #17. You just have time to write. Do not commit to too many other people and their projects. Do what inspires you not what inspires someone else. Right?


17. Have a plan or direction for the next few years and beyond--Goals are critical: What are you going to accomplish this year, next year, and the year after? Write it down. Have a goal or set of goals. We all need goals! Humans are goal oriented creatures. If you have a goal and only get to 25 percent of it, it is better than having a goal and getting to none of it. Perhaps see what you have accomplished each year when you do your annual reports and map it out. Compare your personal growth over time. See if you meet your goals each year. Perhaps reward yourself when you do with an ice cream cone or a night out. In 2006, I got lucky and reached my long-term goal of 30 articles published or in press. Of course, 14 of those were conference proceedings but I made my goal. I think I ended up with 24 things published, 6 in press, and 7 other things in review (including a book). But I am the same person who used to published very little back when I started. In comparison, when I graduated in 1989 until 6 years later in 1995 or 1996 when I was preparing my tenure and promotion files, I had experienced many difficulties getting things accepted. In fact, during the 1990s I averaged about 5 publications per year and during the 2000s I have averaged nearly 18 per year (of course, this counts conference proceedings). What changed? I am still that same dumb midwest kid who my elementary teachers used to say could not read and write well (perhaps mainly since they could not read my handwriting). I pinch the skin on my hands to see if anything has changed but indeed I am the same person. Perhaps it was more persistence like an ant and more interesting research as well. Certainly, there are more colleagues. Also, having tenure and being able to say no to some silly committees. And I am better organized. And I think reputation and growing networks help. You will also grow your reputation and networks. Now in 2007 I can cut back. I just changed my writing goals a few months ago. I am going to write more books and help people with their research. Right now my 1-3 year plan is to write a few books, become a tad better known, and be paid to travel all over to keynote conferences and continue to write more books. Then I will perhaps leave IU and live in Florida, California, Arizona, Colorado, or somewhere warm! Today it is 0-10 degrees Farenheit and tomorrow it will be colder still so it sounds like a good plan to me.


18. Read a paper on how to create a writing plan: My best advice for a writing plan is to see the homepage of my friend from grad school, Dr. Cecil Smith fom Northern Illinois University, and his AERA article from 3 years ago on creating a writing plan. His article is listed below. Read this before doing anything else.
    http://www.cedu.niu.edu/~smith/whatsnew.htm
    
    Smith, M C. (2004, April). Advice for new faculty members: Getting your writing program started.Discussion presented as part of Division C New Faculty Mentoring session at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Diego. (ok, here is another article): Charles C. Fischer (2004). Managing Your Research Writing for Success: Passing the "Gate Keepers." http://www.westga.edu/~bquest/2004/gatekeepers.htm. It has about 15 more points that I do not mention here that are pretty good.


19. Organization: Cecil mentions things like organization--that is implied in some of the other points above. But this is a critical point so I must emphasize it--without organization, you are academically dead in the water and unlikely to get tenure. You must map out your publications by year, have identified stacks of papers and chapters to help with your writing, and put time in your planner to write. Maybe you write best in the morning. Maybe in the afternoon. Maybe at night. You decide what works for you. I just changed from a late night person to a morning person (somewhat) in order to wake up early with family and see my daughter off to school (she is old enough to drive herself). You mght need a power nap during the day. That is ok if it helps with your publication and writing stamina (though I am not a medical doctor). Cecil also mentions things you can do to help write such as writing at home, closing your door at work, forwarding your phone, finding times when you are most alert, trying not to teach every day, and responding to email just at 2-3 designated times per day.


20. Use presentations as starter material: A conference presentation, colloquium, workshop, or class presentation may be a great way to organize your ideas for a future paper. Take advantage of that when you are designing your presentation--always think about how this might flow in a publishable paper. When you end up doing the same presentation over and over, it is definitely time to think about publishing your ideas. I have a book chapter I am working on today (on Wikibooks), in fact, wherein I am using notes I presented with at the University of Oxford a few weeks back. I had to read some new research on Wikipedia for that talk and now I am using the ideas gained from that for my paper. I am also using some of the feedback from the audience to guide my writing. Presentation audience reactions are critical for new areas of research. Use them! Take people to lunch or dinner after your talks and ask for their opinions as to what they liked and what they think is publishable. Hec, they might even join your growing research team.


21. Get paid to write and research: He also notes that some writing projects are funded. For example, I have worked for the military as a research fellow and was paid to find and read papers and then write up technical reports. For instance, this recent report on the potential research related to Massive Multiplayer Online Gaming was commissioned by the Department of Defense wherein I was a research fellow: Bonk, C. J., & Dennen, V. P. (2005). Massive multiplayer online gaming: A research framework for military education and training. (Technical Report # 2005-1). Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Defense (DUSD/R): Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Initiative. Can download from: http://mypage.iu.edu/~cjbonk/GameReport_Bonk_final.pdf or from the ADL lab: http://www.adlnet.org/downloads/189.cfm. Also, as Cecil notes, some grant funding expects papers from it and so you can buy out some teaching time for research and writing. That is a good feeling. And the Spencer Foundation has post-doctoral fellowships that pay one to do research. See http://www.naeducation.org/NAEd_Spencer_Postdoctoral_Fellowship.html (see here for other Spencer information: http://www.spencer.org/programs/fellows/nae_postdoctoral.htm). Currently, they are paying $55,000 for a year of research and $27,500 for a half year. You can only get these within five years of your dissertation defense. So plan early and write a great proposal! This is a prestigious one. Other small pots of money may exist in your institution or university for writing grants and technical reports. Sometimes corporations hire people for evaluation project which can also be published--this is win-win--you get paid to conduct the evaluation and also a chance to publish it. Now you also have to think about the ethics of that--please do not publish faulty data to make the company look good.


22. Find professional balance: Cecil, in his article, discusses finding balance between service and teaching and your writing and publishing efforts. He is right. Most Buddhists will agree on this need for balance! Back in 1970, theBritish rock group, the Moody Blues, noted that all like is just "A Question of Balance" (see lyrics and album picture below: http://www.webwriter.f2s.com/moody/lyrics/aqob.htm). But now I am aging myself. Anyway, if you accept too much service and committee work as I was forced to do at West Virginia University (WVU) my first 3 years out of graduate school (20 committees in 3 years and most of them were teacher education reform which I was definitely not interested in), you will not likely get tenure. In addition to service, teaching can also consume you. If you spend a day prepping a course and a day teaching it and you teach 2-5 courses, you are sunk when looking for time to write. Think deeply about how much time you spend in service, teaching, and research and think of ways (e.g., not teaching in summer or joining that next grant proposal team or travel committee), that will free you up to write more. End of year reports can help in that regard.



23. Find personal balance: Finding balance in life not only includes professional balance but also in your personal life. Of course, if you work 100+ hours a week like I sometimes do, the personal life is not going to be in balance. Here, I need to take this advice as well! Smile! I try to maintain balance by running and working out. Take a break from all that writing when you can! Catch a movie or a play. Try eating in a different restaurant or sit outside and meditate. Do something outside of writing and teaching and service at your college or university or you WILL go Bonkers (pun intended) or, at the very least, get carpel tunnel syndrome. And, if you find some balance, your friends and family will appreciate you more.



24. Do not design too many new courses: Some new faculty are caught in the trap of teaching new course after new course or being stuck with the courses that no one wants to teach. Ug! That will not work. I think at WVU I taught 7 different courses in my 3 years there (perhaps more). And most of these involved the design of a totally new course that had not been done before. Yikes! Do not do that to yourself. One new course per year or perhaps 2 your first year is ok. After that, do not design too many new courses. You need time to write. Writing will get you tenure. Teaching may at some places, but writing and publishing is typically more important. I say this as one who got tenure for teaching, so I do emphasize teaching myself.


25. Find a niche or direction for your research and drill down: Finding an area to explore or direction for your research and build a career around is vital. At first, you will be reading from the giants in the field. After a while, you will finding a unique research project or 2. And only after a few years in the field, will you be able to direct it a bit. Still later, you will be able to reflect on the direction of it and provide an overarching framework for it. Find your niche! Find something exciting and novel to research and explore and write about. As I said earlier, find your passion! If you create a model or framework for your course, as in #8 above, you will have more opportunities to conduct a series of studies and lead the field ahead.


26. Write all the time: You can be writing anywhere you feel you are comfortable and productive as a writer. This includes church, department meetings, Thanksgiving vacations with the relatives, spring break, on a plane to spring break or in the airport while you wait, in a doctors waiting room, etc. Some of these will not work for you. I find that church (before it starts not during) is a good place to write notes for an article on a small piece of paper or kleenex that I have in my pocket. I always try to have a pen and small piece of paper to write on in my pocket. Find an approach that works for you. I find airports and airplanes to be good places to write as well as in the car while I let my son, Alex, drive somewhere (e.g., soccer games, my moms, etc.). Imagine how much you can write in 1-2 hours while you let someone else drive. Recently I started taking a limo to the airport for some trips and either get some sleep or write. You have limited time--find ways to free some time up to write. Also, get a laptop with a lot of battery life. This frees you up to write outside, in a car, or on a plane! My new 11" Sony Vaio has like a 6-8 hour battery life and it says up to 10 hours. In my old heavy Dell Lattitude, I have taken out the CD and replaced it with a 2nd battery for 6-7 hours of battery life.


27. Avoid high quality journal fixations: I talked to Dr. Grace Lin at the University of Houston about this issue (not that it was a problem for her or anything; it was just a conversation). Do not be so fixated on quality that you fail to publish or submit something. When in Thailand a month ago during an e-learning conference that I was keynoting, Randy Garrison (one of the other keynotes), from the University of Calgary, and I discussed problems that new Ph.D.'s face. You can read our conclustions below the following pictures. (this particular conversation was on December 17th, our final day in Bangkok and the day after my b-day, while visiting different Buddhist temples--see my blog on Taiwan and Thailand below; Randy is entering one below).

(See pics below of Randy and I in Bangkok at the golden palace below--he is just a tad taller than me. Bangkok, Thailand, December 17, 2007)

(#27 Continued)...After some discussion, Randy and I concluded that new professors and post-docs and visiting scholars and so on are told to go after the top tier journals and do the highest level of research that they can. I know my training at the University of Wisconsin was to always read from and look to publish in Tier #1 research journals. High standards are great but adopting such an approach may not get you tenure or even published. (As an aside, Randy's expertise is in social presence, inquiry learning online, Dewey’s inquiry model, asynchronous discussion, blended learning, etc.). We both cited former students who have become caught in this trap to be the best that they can be. They will not try to publish it unless it can compete theoretically and methodologically with the top people in the field. I had the same problem as a new person. I think my best writing was from the years 1988-1994, but little of that ever got published and it nearly cost me tenure. I was one 30 minute edit away from a major publication on cooperative reading for Review of Educational Research (RER) which is the best journal in the field. I still shed tears about that one every so often. But I had writer's block and a sense that the paper could still be better and I was jumping to a different paper and conference every few months. Later on I just dove into data (less planful I know) and I lowered my standards a tad (not a lot) and poof, the publications flowed. I also switched fields and found something to be more passionate about--online and distance learning. I simply am not smart enough to compete with the highest level brains in psychology and my interests are much more pragmatic--I want to see things make a difference not simply dream up new theories that have little relevance to life. I found out that I have some pretty good creative ideas nonetheless that are publishable. And so do you. Look inside. I have faculty colleagues who also have suffered from this focus on tier #1 journals and they struggled with the tenure process as well. My recommendation—get some stuff in high quality journals, other stuff in books, and publish the other stuff where you may. Quality is important but so is quantity. Do not let anyone fool you. Everything counts! (Also in here is a picture with Dr. Kevin Koury, my first graduate student from WVU and now an endowed chair in Pennsylvania.)

(Kevin Koury (my first grad student at WVU) and other speakers in Thailand.)



(Curt with Thitinun Boonseng (known as Ta) in Thailand--Ta organized the conference--is a Univ of Missouri graduate student of David Jonassen).



28. Quantity matters as well as quality (sometimes more so): As I noted above, despite what almost everyone says (i.e., that quality is the most important variable in tenure), quantity also matters. If you are 1 publication away from tenure and people like you at your institution, they will make a case for you. At that time, they will use conference proceedings, book chapters, books you have written or edited, technical reports, and so on, to help build that case. Now, they prefer not to do that but these things all matter and help in the end. Of course, having a coherent research path and focus will help when making such a case. In my opinion, 10 or 20 publications in a year in Tier 2 journals outweigh 1-2 Tier 1 journal publications. Others will, of course, disagree and note that it depends. Ok, I agree with you. But my point is to not listen to all the people who tell you that a book or a book chapter will not help you get tenure. In the end, it will. And it cannot ever hurt you. Most of this is about getting national and international reputations. And so, technical reports and white papers that are cited heavily as well as books do help in that regard. Do not let them fool you that they do not. And if you are worried about this one, write to me for advice or a joke and I will tell you both. Smile! (By the way, my wonderful colleague here at IU, Dr. Jonathan Plucker, has a nice response to this issue in my blog feedback that you might want to check out.)

29. Prioritize: Cecil notes that if you want many publications from your dissertation research, you need to prioritize them. What is the most publishable? What is the least publishable? What could appear in a high quality journal? What might be a minor publication? What might be spin-off projects? Etc. You (and your mentor) must do some of this--ok, see mentor comments below.

30. You are just a grasshopper, so get a mentor and use him/her: Last point--so read carefully! As in the 1970s TV show (about like in the 1870s), Kung Fu featuring David Carradine as Kwai Chang Caine or just "Caine," (see http://www.kungfu-guide.com/), you are just a grasshopper, hopping from one research project and idea to the next. Hop, hop, hop, hop and off you go. As I pointed out earlier, you need to focus some of that hopping behavior. Don't get me wrong, it is better to be an inquisitive hopper young grasshopper than to be perpetually dormant like an old volcano or spending an exorbitant amount of time hybernating like a bear in winter. However, sometime the little hopper must also listen. So, my final piece of writing advice is to get a mentor to help with all the points mentioned of the above! A mentor can keep you on track and focused on your writing and publishing goals. A mentor is a great one to run ideas by. A mentor can lighten up conversations and make your problems with teaching, research, writing, etc., seem less severe. A mentor can also contribute to your research in a minor or major way. And that mentor can help you out at promotion and tenure time and when looking for a new job. Cecil also noted that you might email a senior colleague in the field and get some candid ideas and feedback. Most people love to discuss their research and ideas.

(#30 Continued)...I have had various mentors. When I arrived at WVU, Dr. Michael Reed, took me under his wing for a bit since we were both writing and technology researchers. Great guy who left WVU for NYU a couple of years after I left (see http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/faculty_bios/view/W._Michael_Reed). In addition to Mike Reed, shortly after I arrived at IU, the late Dr. Ben Bailey become my educational psychology mentor. Ben had me pay him $10 a month to buy a recliner from his office (cost me $120). I would give him the $10 and sit in the chair and he would mentor me once a month. At the end of that year (summer of 1990), Ben retired and gave me the chair. What an excellent way to mentor somebody. Despite being one of our statistics professors, Ben was a humanist who had studied with Art Combs in Florida and it showed. At the end of each semester, he made up awards for each and every student in the class. Ben also warned me that factor analyses (of which I was running several on new instruments I was developing for metacognition in reading and writing as well as a scale for social constructivism called the SCALE (Social Constructivism and Active Learning Environments) and still other scales, were voodoo statistics. None of that work was ever published. I wish I would have listened to my mentor Ben Bailey. Advice: do NOT develop new instruments and scales as a new professor. It sucks the life blood out of you and there are bound to be many problems, barriers, limitations, and headaches. Convinced? This stupid research track nearly cost me tenure. Do you see a theme here? When I got to IU, Sam Guskin became my mentor. Same was also fantastic to talk to about my research plans and publications ideas. He too has since retired.

Alright, that is 30 ideas and guidelines and there are many more inside of those. And the 2 articles references below have 30 more ideas. Read them! Ok, that is enough? What have your learned young grasshoppers, bumblebees, and ants? I will not ask if you can now snatch the pebbles from my hand as Master Kan said to Caine in Kung Fu, but can you now start writing and publishing? I hope so. And with some emotional spirit and passion and thirst for discovering and disseminating new knowledge. Spend some time as grasshoppers, bumblebees, and ants listening and learning, and later on you can be butterflies, moths, and birds who connect people and can look down and provide a big picture on your field. And, if you take on human form, you can also become expedition leaders, tour bus guides, and even sought after mentors.

I think my friend Cecil Smith could expand all the points above into a book of advice for new faculty members including issues related to mentoring, teaching, testing, advising, and having a personal life. I have told him this for nearly three years now. Perhaps someday he will do it. I think he would sell a lot of books!!!!

Cecil did read through this and wanted me to point out one more thing, "avoiding meetings at all costs"--this is a big one. People love to meet and chat and exhaust your writing time. I use an office in the basement of my house to write. At IU, I have a corner office as far from people as I can be. I can sneak in the back way and up the side elevator without people knowing I am in. That being said, I have an open door policy. But Cecil is right again, do not get overextended when it comes to meetings. I do not have a computer or PDA keep track of my schedule. I have a regular small daily planner with a small space for each day. I figure if I cannot fit all my meetings in that space, I have too many meetings and if I miss one so be it. There is only so much one can do.

Oh ya, 2 more things, I sometimes doublebook meetings as students often never show up or their schedules change. And when you have a student waiting outside, the one inside will not go on and on and on. And I will often teach on Fridays since that is when my university likes to schedule meetings. So this way I miss those silly meetings. And most of them are really silly.

Ok, those are just a few tips. There are many more, many of which you know. Still, I hope these are helpful. Write me an email if you want to let me know what you think or if you have more ideas. My email is: cjbonk (at) indiana.edu. There is a nice discussion already taking place in the responses to this post. Bye for now.

One more reminder to read these other 2 articles on this topic from point #18 above:

Smith, M C. (2004, April). Advice for new faculty members: Getting your writing program started.Discussion presented as part of Division C New Faculty Mentoring session at the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, San Diego. Retrieved February 2, 2007, from http://www.cedu.niu.edu/~smith/Conferences/2004/Writingmentor.doc

Cecil Smith's homepage is at: http://www.cedu.niu.edu/~smith/whatsnew.htm

Charles C. Fischer, (2004). Managing Your Research Writing for Success: Passing the "Gate Keepers." Retrieved February 2, 2007, from http://www.westga.edu/~bquest/2004/gatekeepers.htm

Perhaps you all can share more such articles with me!!! I hope to later post another set of ideas for young scholars on how to present and speak. And also some ideas related to job hunting. Perhaps some on teaching and service too. Not sure when. Depends on my writing plans. Smile. Best of luck to you!

Final Quote: "Quickly as you can, snatch the pebble from my hand. When you can take the pebble from my hand, it will be time for you to leave." - Master Kan said to Caine (i.e., David Carradine) in the 1970s TV Show Kung Fu.