Two weeks ago, I completely cleaned my home office for the first time since moving into this house in June 1993. 14 years of junk was piled up. I Had stacks and stacks and stacks of papers that I accumulated. So many stacks. I found lecture notes and handouts used in classes over a decade ago. There were even course notes from my first class on creativity that I took with Gary Davis back in January of 1986 at the University of Wisconsin. I thought I had been doing a good job of cleaning up but I guess not. I am a pack rat.
Ok, 12 suitcases stuffed with old papers were taken to the Bloomington recycling center. So many old technical reports, research papers, and workshop handouts were terminated there. Oh that felt good. Just let it go. In return, I recovered many great paperclips--the hard fastener kind. But what was lost? I list a few things below.
1. Cutting Edge Thinking and Seminal Writing: I lost knowledge of those people on the cutting edge educational technology from the 1980s and 1990s. Sure, I kept the most seminal pieces. But what did I forget to save? What might I need someday? What did miss out on in return? Will an article be available digitally if I ever need it? I remember complaints from a doctoral seminar class I taught in 2002 when I included articles that were more than a few years old. I had them reading Seymour Papert, John Seely Brown, Ann Brown, Marlene Scardamalia, Roger Schank, Roy D. Pea, Elliott Soloway, etc. God forbid that some of their classic pieces were 10 years old. I told one of my nearly completed Ph.D. students about the accident Seymour Papert had in Hanoi, Vietnam and he say "Who?" Oh, it sometimes hurts to toss.
2. Memories: In those 12 suitcases where memories. I had so many a battle with those articles--to comprehend them and note what they were missing or what they had that was spot on--and then to use them in my own reports. Each article I read or skimmed has some of those memories. I had been saving this stuff for a reason. Was that reason now gone? Had I, in fact, given up on much of my own field or profession? Had I moved on or was I about to depart? Why was parting with so much of this stuff easy when just a year or 2 earlier, when I had thought about doing it, it was impossible? Had I changed? Was the intersection of educational psychology and instructional technology no longer important or interesting?
3. Expertise: Those who study chess players and other experts, find that expertise takes thousands of hours and perhaps 5-7 years of one's life to build up. So then was my expertise being thrown away? I did not have time or patience to scan 12 suitcases of stuff. Was I moving to a new field? If so, when and what was it? With such extensive amounts of information now gone, was I no longer an expert in the field of e-learning? Or, perhaps, expertise no longer comes from storing boxes and boxes and stacks and stacks of paper. Perhaps it never did. Perhaps we continue to recreate our areas of expertise. And perhaps this recreation process takes much less time than 5-7 years. With 21st century technologies, it is plausible to become an expert at something in a much shorter time span. And yes, we have many more people mascurading as experts simply because they are linked in to other experts from whom they siphon off knowledge when needed. There is good and bad in all that, of course. We have Google and Yahoo as well as collaborative networks in Facebook and LinkedIn to thank for that. We can email out friends with a question whenever one arises or ask for a missing resource that we perhaps mistakenly chucked. If most or our expertise is retrievable from somewhere at one's whim, then what is expertise anyway? And do we need to save papers we are sent or given links to anymore?
4. When is Old, Old? During my cleaning episode, I started to wonder about when my stuff I save really old. I was tossing any technical report that was older than 5 years old. That was one of the most troubling aspects of cleaning up my home office. Sure, I had many reports left and a few that I hung on to but perhaps should not have. I thought that perhaps my fall class would love to see these reports.
I kept many cool reports; including a 2005 report from Australia's ACT Dept of Ed and Training on emerging technologies, the 2002, 2003, and 2004 reports from the Sloan-C Consortium on quality online and blended learning, the Pew/Internet and American Life Project on the future of the Internet from January 2005, a report from the Innovation Advisory Council of New Zealand and one on e-learning opportunities in New Zealand that I got in 2002 during my trip there, 2004 e-learning guidebooks from the United Arab Emirates that I had received during my last trip there a couple of years ago, a report on the State of e-Learning in the United States from around 2000, a couple of ASTD reports including one on a vision for e-learning from 2000, the 1998-1999 Teaching at an Internet Distance: The Pedagogy of Online Teaching and Learning report from the University of Illinois which I helped with in a minor way, a 2005 report from Oxford's Internet Survey that I had just received during my trip there in January, UCLA's famous Internet Report on Surveying the Digital Future, a 2004 e-learning report from the National College of Ireland that I was given 2 years ago, and a 2006 report on Learning for the 21st Century from the Partnership for 21st Century Skills in DC.
I kept many others. But I tossed out 5-10 reports for every one that I saved. And how often will I read the ones that I saved? Perhaps not much. I kept them to share with my students as examples of reports that they might write. If not for that, many more would have found their way into the garbage bin; not because they are rubbish but because I do not really need them anymore. Old white papers and technical reports have a much shorter lifespan today then they did 10 or 20 or 30 years ago; especially those in educational technology.
5. Are My Old Reports, Really Old? So, as I was tossing out report after report, I started to get depressed. Not just because I missed the intellectual dances that I had with the writers of those reports or because I realized that I was 5 or 10 years older than when I first read them, but because I started to contemplate what was happening (or had happened) to many of the technical reports that I had done for others during the years. What about that 1999 report on asynchronous conferencing and collaboration I did for the Army Research Institute (Applying collaborative and e-learning tools to military distance learning: A research framework. (Technical Report #1107)), or the 2005 report Vanessa Dennen and I did for the Department of Defense on where the research needs to go on massive multiplayer online gaming (MMOG), or the 2004 Perfect E-storm report I did for the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education, and many others? I am sure many of those are history as well. But how long of a shelf life do these things really have? Are they worth doing anymore? They often take 6 months to a year to generate, if not longer. If they only are important for a couple of years, there is less incentive to do them. How long will any of our work be read? In the days of the heyday of Papert's book "Mindstorms," books like that would be welcome reading for at least a few years, if not a decade. Not today. Today we toss. But, of course, if is a good book, Google or Microsoft will likely have at least some of it available online. Still, I had many a depressing reflection about my own works when sending tons of reports from other people to the recycling. I even had fun throwing out my own papers!!!
6. When is New, New? Ok, today, my friend and colleague, Dr. KJ Kim sent an email to my blended learning research team with a note about the recent Sloan-C report called "Blending in: The Extent and Promise of Blended Education in the United States." This is a March 2007 report, so perhaps it is too old for most of you to look up and read. Given my recent Handbook of Blended Learning, it was interesting that this report revealed some decreases in blended learning in higher education. In fact, it noted that fully online courses were more slightly prevalent than blended courses. However, there were larger percentages of blended program offerings than fully online ones (such numbers I think will increase as the advantages of blended become more known). In particular, there were higher percentages of blended programs in business, education, healthcare, computer and info sciences, and liberal arts. Larger institutions were, not surprisingly, more engaged in blended learning than smaller ones. There are many more findings in the report. But when will this report also be old? When should we toss it? And do we even need it given that it is available online from Sloan-C. Why print it out anyway?
See these various Sloan-C links:
See the blended learning report: http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/survey/pdf/Blending_In.pdf
Become part of the new blended learning community: http://www.sloan-c.org/publications/survey/blended06.asp
See other Sloan-C blended resources and books: http://www.blendedteaching.org/node
So what should you save from your stacks is up to you. You will need to decide when old is really old but this is a constantly changing thing and so is your expertise. Right? Right!
Perhaps I am just getting old and cranky. But at least I have a clean home office to work from and view the birds, deer, and trees in the backyard now that the stacks of papers no longer are blocking my windows here in the basement. I wish I had some before and after pictures to share with you all.
Wednesday, 27 June 2007
Saturday, 16 June 2007
A week of hyperspeed e-learning publishing: R2D2 and Beyond!!!
This was a highly productive and somewhat strange week from an academic publication standpoint. I never had such a week before--we hit hyerspeed about half-way through it. As an example, I sent a book manuscript off to Jossey Bass for the production process this week after months of haggling about the title and length of the book. It is about my R2D2 model. Here is the title or current citation:
Bonk, C. J., & Zhang, K. (in press). Empowering Online Learning: 100+ Activities for Reading, Reflecting, Displaying, and Doing. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
In the picture below, Ke Zhang and I display our R2D2 talents.
Bonk, C. J., & Zhang, K. (in press). Empowering Online Learning: 100+ Activities for Reading, Reflecting, Displaying, and Doing. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
In the picture below, Ke Zhang and I display our R2D2 talents.
I guess it will be out in 6-7 months or so. I hope by Xmas so I can send it to family and friends as a Xmas gifts but who knows. If you cannot wait until Xmas to learn about the model, write to me and I will send you what I can (perhaps the preface), or read the following:
Bonk, C. J., & Zhang, K. (2006). Introducing the R2D2 model: Online learning for the diverse learners of this world. Distance Education, 27(2), 249-264.
The above journal article summarizes the R2D2 model and provides many examples, though we modified it slightly in the book. Below is a brief summary of the book pulled mainly from content that was deleted from it prior to the production phase.
Brief Summary of the R2D2 Model and the Book
Ok, below, I provide some comments related to R2D2 that we deleted from the book before sending to Jossey Bass (Note: 6 chapters were deleted from this book (chapters on online learning trends (originally Chapter 1), learning styles and preferences (Ch 2), different generations of learners (Ch 3), problems with LMSs and CMSs and training instructors online (Ch 4), comparisons of R2D2 to other models and our MATRIX model (ch 15), future directions of the Web of Learning (Ch 16)). I can send you some of these if you like...just ask.
As I indicated, the book goes through the R2D2 model (Read, Reflect, Display, and Do)--Note: we could not use R2D2 in the title due to concerns related to Star Wars repurcussions. There are 25 sample activities for each phase of the model or 100 ideas total and for each activitiy, Ke Zhang (my collaborator) from Wayne State University and I go through at least one variation or extension so there are more than 200 activities and ideas for fully online and blended learning courses in the book.
In effect, R2D2 is a relatively simple instructional design model that offers a macro lens on the processes that an instructor or instructional designer might want to consider in designing, building, or moderating an online course or module. It simultaneously provides a window into specific ideas that might help in the successful delivery of a course or module. It is more a problem solving process than it is a way to address learning styles. In part, it is a motivational model, a problem solving model, an instructional design model, and a learning preferences or styles approach. Or maybe it is none of that (Note that neither Ke or I believe that any learning style approach is valid or reliable but they do encourage instructors, instructional designers, course developers, and administrators to think about the varied and diverse needs of their learners).
Ke and I intend for the R2D2 acronym to be an easy mnemonic for instructors as well as students to remember. It is a label that distance educators and researchers can use to discuss the quality of an online course and perhaps structure the redesign of it. Clearly, it is advantageous that the Read, Reflect, Display, and Do (i.e., R2D2) model is easy to remember and can be applied in a versatile manner! It might be used as a general evaluation framework for a course, set of courses, or a program, or as a specific tool for generating interesting and engaging activities within fully online or blended courses.
Ke and I also hope that thoughtful use of our model can lead to transformative blended and fully online experiences. Of course, this book offers a few windows into how this might occur. Those reading this book should keep in mind that what was possible in the Web of Learning at the time of this writing was scarcely imagined a few short years before. The same will undoubtedly be true in a few years.
Diversity
Instead of focusing on distinct learning styles or approaches, the aim of this book is essentially to address diverse learner needs. By the term of “diverse,” we do not intend to directly address diversity from the standpoint of social, ethnic, or race-related criteria (though it might). Instead, the notion of diversity here relates to the varied interests, particular learning preferences, generational differences, and special learning needs in online learning. The R2D2 model offers a starting point for online instructors to understand the diverse nature of e-learners and become better able to address their diversity.
Intended Value of the Book
For each of the four key types of learners, the R2D2 model suggests a variety of learning activities for active and effective online learning with various distance learning technologies. In Chapters Three, Five, Seven, and Nine, we detail twenty-five or more online learning strategies for each of the respective quadrants or phases of our model. R2D2 is an easy-to-apply, practical model that helps achieve active learning through four types of activities: (1) reading, (2) reflecting, (3) displaying, and (4) doing.
The “Empowering Online Learning” book (I preferred "E-Powering E-Learning") should find value for online instructors, trainers, instructional designers, and designers of web-based courseware or course management systems. For example, this book introduces the R2D2 model as a practical and easy-to-apply mechanism for online instructors to integrate various learning activities for different types and generations of learners. With a solid theoretical foundation and practical guidance and examples, it may work as a quick, practical guidebook for online instructors, trainers, and instructional designers. In effect, this book is intended to help readers with the design, development, and delivery of learner-centered online learning. At the same time, there are ideas and examples that are more instructor-led as well; if one prefers such options.
Open Issues of R2D2
As with any new idea or model, there are numerous open issues and questions that remain to be sorted out as well as various limitations that must be disclosed. One limitation is that there are an assortment of ideas that cut across multiple phases of the model. Given that many of the 100+ strategies detailed in the book do not fall squarely in one quadrant or another, some online educators may get confused when applying R2D2. Of course, this is a perennial problem related to the lack of validity of learning style approaches and any scheme or framework that attempts to label or somehow segment human learning. Certainly, an equally problematic aspect of R2D2 is that it has yet to be widely used or embedded in blended and fully online courses.
The model or framework provided by R2D2 can help new as well as experienced users of the Web of Learning (i..e., the new name Ke and I gave to the Web) better grasp what is now possible, while perhaps helping glimpse what might be possible in the tomorrows to come. No longer must we remain passive browsers and polite connoisseurs of the Web of Learning. In contrast, we can exploit Web 2.0 technologies and beyond which allow learners to engage in reflective as well as participatory learning wherein they build, tinker with, and share their learning. The use of the R2D2 model will provide guidance for professional educators wanting their learners to generate ideas online as found in the use of podcasts, wikis, blogs, virtual worlds, and social networking software.
Consequently, it is critical to determine how easy it is to train instructors in the use of this model. At the same time, stakeholders will want to know if student retention increases when instructors are properly trained to use this model. Are students more satisfied in courses wherein the instructor had training in how to use R2D2? Do achievement scores go up and are such gains higher in courses that use the R2D2 method over those that do not? And is there a greater opportunity for learning transfer from one context to the next when this model is successfully applied? And, of course, can it take your online instruction to hyperspeed?
The jury is still out on whether the pre-assessment of learning styles, whatever their format or components, can help instructors and trainers better deliver online and blended courses. While it is just one framework, the R2D2 model is a means for instructors to consider online learner needs and learning activities in four different phases or aspects of learning, thereby providing a more enriching and stimulating environment for learning. At the same time, R2D2 makes available a problem solving process that shifts instructors and instructional designers from an overriding focus on the acquisition of content knowledge and basic facts to active learning and reflection including the visualization of one’s learning.
Final Comments in the R2D2 Model
The explosion of online learning events, activities, courses, and programs during the past decade have only scratched the surface of what is currently possible while scarcely hinting at the opportunities of tomorrow. As a result, during the next few years (or decades), researchers will likely compile extensive information about how to address learner needs using models such as R2D2. There will definitely be significant inroads and advances made in personalizing and customizing fully online and blended learning environments. R2D2 certainly pushes us in that direction, but it is clearly not enough. We all have to do more! What will you do to make a contribution toward understanding and using the Web of Learning? May R2D2 take you and your learners to places where no instruction has gone before! Engage!
Other Publications and In Press Stuff this Week...
I also had a whole bunch of stuff published this week and other stuff going to press including 4 chapter reprints in a mammoth book that the Information Science Reference (i.e., Idea Publishing) people are putting together. It is a six volume monster with 200 chapters on online and distance learning. It will sell for a mere $1,750 and is set to come out in July, 2007. I think I may have the most chapters. You can get more information at http://www.igi-pub.com/reference/details.asp?id=6923. A sample of one of my chapters is below.
Bonk, C. J., Wisher, R. A., & Lee, J. (2008). Chapter 1.47. Moderating learner-centered e-learning: Problems and solutions, benefits and implications. In L. Tomei (Ed.), Online and distance learning: Concepts, methodologies, tools, and applications (pp. 536-561). Hershey, PA: Information Science Reference.
I have 3 more chapters being reprinted in there (perhaps the most of anyone in this book...not sure yet). It was quite a surprise to me that they were being reprinted.
Some other publications this week are noted below.
One book chapter went to press in a second edition of the Encyclopedia of Distance and Online Learning. As indicated by the title, this article one explores how to take a learner-centered approach with online instruction:
So, H. J., Bonk, C. J., & Wisher, R. A. (in press). A learner-centered perspective on e-learning: Mounting possibilities. In P. Rogers, G. Berg, J. Boettcher, C. Howard, L. Justice, & K. Schenk (Eds.). Encyclopedia of distance and online learning (2nd edition). Information Science Reference.
Ok, perhaps more importantly, two journal articles were published this week. The first one below is one of many on instructor perceptions and suggestions regarding online learning though we attempted to end it more uniquely than most on this topic. A earlier version of the second one below one an outstanding paper award at the eLearn conference in Hawaii in October 2006.
Liu, S., Kim, K-J., Bonk, C. J., & Magjuka, R. (2007). Benefits, barriers, and suggestions: What did online MBA professors say about online teaching? Online Journal of Distance Learning Administration, 10(2), see http://www.westga.edu/~distance/ojdla/summer102/liu102.htm
Liu, X., Magjuka, R., Bonk, C. J., & Lee, S. H. (2007). Does sense of community matter? An examination of participants’ perceptions of building learning communities in online courses. Quarterly Review of Distance Education, 8(1), 9-24.
In addition, a book chapter came out early this week (co-published with my colleague, Dr. Vanessa Dennen from Florida State University) that summarizes many of the frameworks I have designed for online learning environments during the past decade. It is in Michael G. Moore's Handbook of Distance Education (it is an updated article to what we had in volume 1 of this handbook). I recommend this book given the number of well known scholars he has contributing to it (e.g., Randy Garrison, Zane Berge, Terry Anderson, Robin Mason, Sir John Daniel, Michael Hannifin, Farhad Saba, Som Naidu, Janette Hill, Linda Wilcott, Tom Clark, Donald Hanna, Charlotte Gunawardena, Chris Dede, Walter Archer, Rick Shearer, Marcy Driscoll, Michael Simonson, etc.). Apparently, Michael G. (note the "G" here) Moore knows a ton of important folks in the distance learning field. Well, he has been at it for some time so he should. Great book. I highly recommend it as it is even better than the first edition and quite a bit lighter to carry around. Here is the chapter from Vanessa Dennen and myself:
Bonk, C. J., & Dennen, V. (2007). Frameworks for design and instruction. In M. G. Moore (Ed.), Handbook of distance education (2nd Ed.) (pp. 233-246). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
On top of that, a key technical report (or minibook) came out Wednesday that was produced by Brandon Hall Research (http://www.brandon-hall.com/). I got a copy Thursday. It looks great though it does cost $595. Pictures and bios of my entire blended learning research team are in there. More information on it is here http://www.brandon-hall.com/publications/blendedlearning/blendedlearning.shtml. This is aimed at blended learning in corporate training settings. Our section of the report relates to strategic planning for blended learning in corporate training settings in 5 countries--Taiwan, China, Korea, US, and the UK.
Teng, Y.-T, Bonk, C. J., Kim, K-J., Oh, E. J., Son, S.-J., Zeng, T., & Cheng, J. (2007, June). Strategically planning for blended learning: A cross-cultural comparison. In J. Clarey (Ed.). The real story: Blended learning (pp. 101-114). Sunnyvale, CA: Brandon Hall Research.
Ok, that is a sample of some of the articles I had come out this week or go to press. There were more and a few others sent out for review. Now I am finally (yes, finally!) working on my Learning World is Flat book. Been talking about it for more than 18 months. After that is done, I will write a book related to online motivation and retention which will outline my TEC-VARIETY model. The World is Flat book will be my summer 2007 project and the other one will be my project during the fall of 2007 and spring of 2008 or so I hope. Who knows...these are just goals.
Due to my focus on book writing, I will be missing the Ed Media Conference in Vancouver in a week or so. I have been going every year since 1999 so this really hurts not to go. As my post on Canada below notes, I love Vancouver in June. So many friends and colleagues will be there. There are some wonderful researchers who present at Ed Media each year--many from Australia. The Aussies travel well. Oh, tear, tear, cry, cry. I will also not be going to the annual distance teaching and learning conference at the University of Wisconsin (my alma mater) in August. More tears to shed!!!!!!
Ok, send me notes if you want to know more about my Empowering Online Learning book or about any of the other book projects I mentioned here. I am sure I will be adding a blog post when the book is closer to publication though you can likely inquire with Jossey Bass about ordering a copy soon. I am pretty sure it will not arrive by hyperspeed or Warp 9, but it will get there someday. Until then, full impulse power.
Wednesday, 13 June 2007
Oh Canada...10 E-Learning Memories from 9 Trips in 2 Years.
Ok, this posting is a chance to me to reflect on many trips I have had recently to the Great White North as some refer to it as--though with global warming I have rarely seen snow there. I have been in Canada for 9 different trips in 2 years starting with Ed Media in Montreal in June 2005. That was memorable indeed! Jazzfest. And my sabbatical started a year ago with a 3 city tour of Canada--talks in Saskatoon, Calgary, and then Edmonton. Much to do there! Many people to show me around! Thanks to everyone for that! From Barry Brown in Saskatoon to BJ Eib, Norm Vaughan, and Randy Garrison in Calgary, and John Boyle, Guohua Pan, and many others in Edmonton. It was great to be on radio, 3 TV stations, and the newspaper one day in Edmonton. Pics from Saskatoon are below with 3 professors, Barry Brown, Rick Schwier, and Earl Misanchuk, there who all got their degrees in my department at IU a few years earlier (smile). They are doing the Indiana "I."
Pics from the Calgary portion of that trip are below (note that they made me wear the Calgary Flames shirt for my journey up to Edmonton where the Oilers play hockey. Smile.)
(Note: above is Norm Vaughan and myself in one picture and the whole group in the other.)
(Note: one pic above is of me and Randy Garrison; the other is of me with BJ Eib and Pam. BJ and Pam used to work in Indiana. BJ worked at our Center for Excellence in Education (CEE) in our School of Education where she brought in tons of teacher training grant money. We are doing the Indiana "I" in this picture.)
I have been to Canada 3 times in a little over the past month; first to Mohawk College in Hamilton to speak on how the learning world has become flat and also on strategies for teaching online (see http://connections.mohawkcollege.ca/). Next I gave a keynote at a conference at Concordia University in Montreal (see http://spirit-of-inquiry.concordia.ca/keynote.shtml). See pic below with Arshad Ahmad from the business school at Concordia. Finally, last week, I spoke in 3 different places in 3 days to begin to wind down my sabbatical as it all started--with a 3 city speaking tour in Canada..only this time in the eastern time zone instead of Rocky Mountain time. I have gone from west to east. I still need to get to more provinces, however.
In my most recent 3-4 days in Canada (June 3rd-6th), I spoke to teachers in the York district in Newmarket (just outside Toronto thanks to Janet Murphy's excellent coordination), graduate students at York University in Toronto (my first grad class since this sabbatical began--thanks Ron Owston--see Flickr for pictures or see below).
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10. Canada has Stephen Downes: Stephen reads everything in the field of educational technology and online learning and often summarizes them so well that you do not have to read them--just read his blog (hec, he is likely one of the first to read this blog post--though his blog says he is in Taiwan now with limited access and is about to travel home.). And, unlike many of us who publish just for the sake of tenure, he is passionate in his writing!!! As I indicated, Stephen will often read and review articles on emerging technologies so that you can decide whether to read the article yourself or use the particular technology. He will blog on a conference that perhaps you could not get to. I attend many conferences each year but remain amazed by the number that Stephen gets to. Stephen's blog is perhaps read by more people in higher education than anyone else. Do the Canadians know how well he places Canada on the e-learning map. If you were at a dinner party and someone said "educational technology" and "Canada" in the same sentence, I think most would immediately think of Stephen Downes. Thanks for all the fantastic posts Stephen! You are an e-learning institution.
See http://www.downes.ca/
http://www.downes.ca/news/OLDaily.htm
Well, that is 10 things I have to say in recapping all these trips to Canada over the past 2 years. (Note that I have been to the UK 10 times in a little over 2 years and 9 times to Canada in less than 2 years; I am curtailing my travel now in order to write more books. TravelinEdMan will still exist, but his ideas will have to travel electronically more often than in the past).
Of course, I have enjoyed these visits to Canada but I am getting a tad worried that I am starting to speak Canadian. Haw bout dat huckey game, eh? Ok, I better sign off now, before someone calls me a hoser. Just post it you hoser. Ok...here it goes.
Pics from the Calgary portion of that trip are below (note that they made me wear the Calgary Flames shirt for my journey up to Edmonton where the Oilers play hockey. Smile.)
(Note: above is Norm Vaughan and myself in one picture and the whole group in the other.)
(Note: one pic above is of me and Randy Garrison; the other is of me with BJ Eib and Pam. BJ and Pam used to work in Indiana. BJ worked at our Center for Excellence in Education (CEE) in our School of Education where she brought in tons of teacher training grant money. We are doing the Indiana "I" in this picture.)
I have been to Canada 3 times in a little over the past month; first to Mohawk College in Hamilton to speak on how the learning world has become flat and also on strategies for teaching online (see http://connections.mohawkcollege.ca/). Next I gave a keynote at a conference at Concordia University in Montreal (see http://spirit-of-inquiry.concordia.ca/keynote.shtml). See pic below with Arshad Ahmad from the business school at Concordia. Finally, last week, I spoke in 3 different places in 3 days to begin to wind down my sabbatical as it all started--with a 3 city speaking tour in Canada..only this time in the eastern time zone instead of Rocky Mountain time. I have gone from west to east. I still need to get to more provinces, however.
In my most recent 3-4 days in Canada (June 3rd-6th), I spoke to teachers in the York district in Newmarket (just outside Toronto thanks to Janet Murphy's excellent coordination), graduate students at York University in Toronto (my first grad class since this sabbatical began--thanks Ron Owston--see Flickr for pictures or see below).
The Orion conference in Toronto (see http://www.orion.on.ca/2007orionsummit/home.html), and then Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. I took a shuttle service from Toronto to London; otherwise friends and taxi's drove me from place-to-place. Lot of friends! See some of those at Orion conference below (observing a presentation on an anatomy course in 3D).
Now after all these trips let me make some quick observations.
1. E-Learning Leader: The majority of my speaking invites related to e-learning and blended learnig lately are from those in Canada and the UK. This indicates either that they know I like a good beer and conversation or that these 2 countries are assuming leadership in this field or attempting to do so. Perhaps it is both! Notice that Ed Media is back in Canada in 2 weeks (in Vancouver) and eLearn is in Quebec City in October. Maybe there is more government support for e-learning in Canada than here in the States where we lack e-learning leadership from the government. A recent study I did in corporate training departments in 5 different countries showed that government support for e-learning and blended learning was high in the UK and Korea and lagged behind in the USA, China, and Taiwan. We did not study Canada in that one. I guess we should have.
2. Cross-Institutional Collaboration: I notice that in the Canadian higher education workshops I do are typically jointly sponsored and open invite (i.e., anyone can attend for free). As a result, there are often people from many local colleges traveling to another one for a conference or event. Or an event is broadcast using Webstreaming or videoconferencing. The sharing, networking, and collaboration among and between institutions of higher learning as well as the corporate sector in Canada is stunning. I have noted similar things in the UK. People in the UK travel well due to the size of their country and they can use trains (a conference in the middle of the country, say in Leicester, is only 2-3 hours for nearly anyone to travel to by train). In Canada, it may be that share and collaborate well and invite people from nearby places due to its enormous size.
3. Sponsors: As I said, in Canada, there are sponsors for these e-learning conferences. People like Joe Sandercook from McGraw-Hill Ryerson and others have done a marvelous job of sponsoring my talks in Canada. I rarely see the same thing here in the USA. It is really heartwarming when someone calls me up and says "hey, Curt, we have a regional conference in Moose Jaw and we would love for you to be a keynote speaker there." Unfortunately, I have yet to be to Moose Jaw or Yellowknife but perhaps someday. McGraw-Hill Ryerson, like any company is profit-driven, but it is one few companies that truly seems interested in moving the field of educational technology and e-learning ahead. As a former CPA and corporate controller, it is good to see some genuine interest in the ultimate user of their products--the faculty members and the students. Thanks Joe!
4. Inquiry-Based Learning: Only in Canada do I get requests to speak on inquiry-based learning. Most recently, some folks at the University of Guelph (near Toronto) wanted me to speak on it. Unfortunately, we could not come to a date and time. Interesting, back in November 2005, I noted that the University of Calgary has a funded blended learning initiative wherein faculty members can get funded for their blended learning course projects if they include an inquiry component. See success stories at the Learning Commons department at the University of Calgary: http://commons.ucalgary.ca/. Why is inquiry-based learning not more prevalent in the USA or other countries that I visit? Is this a direction we should head? Does online learning provide more rich and powerful opportunities for it?
5. Blended Learning: A hot topic in Canada right now is blended learning. People like Norm Vaughan and Randy Garrison at the University of Calgary are doing a more practical and higher education focused book than my Handbook of Blended Learning which has both higher education and corporate training components. Their book will be coming out soon with Jossey Bass or so I think. Randy and Norm are also currently offering a course on blended learning. I said, a course on blended learning. Wow!!!!!!!!!! I am not sure that would fly here at Indiana. I have had many people in my TravelinEdMan journeys ask my if IU could offer a master's or Ph.D. in blended learning or e-learning and I have to tell them regretfully no.
Dr. Rick Schwier at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon told me last month (he was here on sabbatical) that they are also offering such a course on blended learning. And blended is not just hot at Canadian Universities. For instance, when at the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology (NAIT), they had me do a talk on blended learning that they sent to 35 or so sites in Canada as well as to Alaska and Saudi Arabia. I also did a blended talk in Saskatoon a few days before it which is a Google video now (see http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8666613122467962929&q=curtis+bonk&hl=en). Last week, I spoke on blended learning to graduate students at York University, to instructors at Fanshawe, and then to end my trip, I gave an overview of blended learning to Fanshawe administrators.
The Canadians sure seem to like blended learning as much as they do hockey...well, maybe not that much. These are just a few examples. Perhaps it is because, like me, they believe in getting learning out in as many formats to reach as many people as possible. They have a diverse population and significant geography to traverse with their courses. Perhaps the Canadians are simply taking a leadership role. Perhaps one should read Ron Owston and Randy Garrison's chapter in my Handbook of Blended Learning to see what is going on in Canada in the area of blended learning or wait for Randy's upcoming book.
6. Facebook: When I spoke at Concordia University in Montreal a few weeks ago, I showed my Facebook account and noted that I only had 2 friends in 1 year of using Facebook (and one was an acordian player from Germany I had never met). Now, less than a month later, I have more than 20 friends in Facebook and it is growing every day. Seems many Canadians felt sorry for me. Also, I have been told that Facebook has a huge presence in Canada; especially in the Ontario province. Interesting--why are the Canadians fascinated with Facebook? In the past week, however, I have had people from countries such as Australia, the USA, and the UK contact me through their Facebook accounts. So maybe, Facebook is starting to take off among us adults across the planet. Someone should study this!
7. OISE is Poised Again: When I was a graduate student at Wisconsin in the late 1980s, my colleagues and I were always reading information from the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto. It was always highly grounded in theory and yet had a practical bent to it. People like Marlene Scardamalia, Carl Bereiter, and Gordon Wells have always been welcome reading. Marlene and Carl led the research field on computers and writing and continue to do so. Their psychology of writing papers and books were an inspiration to my own dissertation on computer prompts and writing and keystroke mapping of that writing. Anyway, I have meet a number of people during the past few trips to Canada who have recently completed dissertations at OISE on various collaborative technologies. Once again, it seems that OISE is facilitating many interesting studies (see picture below from Olivia Roberson from OISE who just graduated with a dissertation related to online collaboration processes and stages). Way to go OISE and Olivia!
8. May Day: The past few years I have been to Canada for inservice workshops in May and June. May and June apparently are the months when colleges and universities are in summer session and instructors can come in for some training. Here in the US, this might more often be June and July or never (smile). In Canada, it just seems expected that professors and instructors will engage in retooling during May or June. Many (though not all) realize that the world is changing and they better learn what is possible. Sure, there are still many who are reluctant, resistant, reticent, and hesitant. But, hey, as Bonk is Borg will note, "Resistence is Futile" (see http://www.trainingshare.com/images/BonkasBorg.jpg or http://www.trainingshare.com/workshop.php). Some reading this post will say, well we have training at my campus here in the US. What is Bonk talking about. Well, when you compare the number of higher education institutions in Canada and the US, and realize that I have spoken at 3-4 times as many Canadian colleges and universities than US ones during this sabbatical, you have to at least note it. Ditto the UK compared to the USA. Perhaps US people hate me. Or perhaps they do not like a good conversation and a beer as those in Canada and the UK do.
9. In Canada, E-Learning Friends are Friends for Life: I am on sabbatical now. Been on it for 14 months with a little over 2 months to go. Big sigh and an ug!!! Back in the fall of 1998, I did part of my last sabbatical at Simon Fraser University (SFU) at their Burnaby campus in Vancouver at the top of a mountain. What a lovely place it is. Wish I could go to Ed Media in Vancouver later this month, in fact.
Back in November 1998, I got a chance to hang out with Linda Harasim's research team where the TeleLearning Centres of Excellence were headquartered. Linda had quite a wonderful research team assembled there--Cindy Xin, Brian Fisher, Milton Campos, Sylvia Curry, etc. And she kindly introduced me to many people who came to the TeleLearning conference there that month. People like Ron Owston from York University and Robin Mason from the Open University. They all remain friends today! See pics of Milton and I in Toronto in May. First time I have seen him in years yet he remains a great friend.
I got emails from Cindy, Brian, Milton, and Ron in the past 1-2 days. And there is talk of many of us getting together at Milton's new house near the Vermont border just outside Montreal. My career perhaps had started taking off the year before in Finland, but those weeks in Vancouver were wonderful since I was able to meet many e-learning friends for life. Perhaps I need to move to Canada. I grew up in Milwaukee, so not far in terms of accent.
10. Canada has Stephen Downes: Stephen reads everything in the field of educational technology and online learning and often summarizes them so well that you do not have to read them--just read his blog (hec, he is likely one of the first to read this blog post--though his blog says he is in Taiwan now with limited access and is about to travel home.). And, unlike many of us who publish just for the sake of tenure, he is passionate in his writing!!! As I indicated, Stephen will often read and review articles on emerging technologies so that you can decide whether to read the article yourself or use the particular technology. He will blog on a conference that perhaps you could not get to. I attend many conferences each year but remain amazed by the number that Stephen gets to. Stephen's blog is perhaps read by more people in higher education than anyone else. Do the Canadians know how well he places Canada on the e-learning map. If you were at a dinner party and someone said "educational technology" and "Canada" in the same sentence, I think most would immediately think of Stephen Downes. Thanks for all the fantastic posts Stephen! You are an e-learning institution.
See http://www.downes.ca/
http://www.downes.ca/news/OLDaily.htm
Well, that is 10 things I have to say in recapping all these trips to Canada over the past 2 years. (Note that I have been to the UK 10 times in a little over 2 years and 9 times to Canada in less than 2 years; I am curtailing my travel now in order to write more books. TravelinEdMan will still exist, but his ideas will have to travel electronically more often than in the past).
Of course, I have enjoyed these visits to Canada but I am getting a tad worried that I am starting to speak Canadian. Haw bout dat huckey game, eh? Ok, I better sign off now, before someone calls me a hoser. Just post it you hoser. Ok...here it goes.
Saturday, 28 April 2007
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!
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!
Wednesday, 18 April 2007
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.
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.
Saturday, 3 March 2007
Self-Directed e-Learning at Saudi Aramco
- 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.
Wednesday, 31 January 2007
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).
(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.
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).
- 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.)
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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!
- 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!
- 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.
- 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!
- 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!!!
- 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!
- 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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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?
- 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.
- 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. - 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
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