Category: Personal

A portion of the motivation for the 15 years I spent on a homestead farm in Northern Alberta was inspired by reading and rereading of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden Pond as an undergraduate. Thus I was thrilled to take the time with Susan for a leisurely stroll around the pond on a beautiful spring afternoon when we visited Concord Mass yesterday. The guide books suggest that the site is overrun with tourists in the summer, but though hardly a solitary experience, we were pleased to be able to experience the site with only a few more people than Thoreau’s solitary view from 1854.

Of course I forgot the camera, but managed to squeeze off a few flicks with the iphone and present them here in iphotos default slideshow format.

We were a bit surprised that Thoreau didn’t locate his cabin overlooking the lack- but perhaps he enjoyed the zen like view of the lake peaking through the pine and oak trees from its location. The origional site was not unearthed until the 1940’s (as seen in the photo with Susan. The cabin was moved when he left and rebuilt near the parking lot for tourist viewing much later. However one of the oldest friends who had visited the site, attempted to relocate the site and a tradition evolved from the late 19th century to place a rock their in memory of Thoreau’s impact on individual lifes. The quite impressive pile of stone’s lies about 20 feet from the actual site and is a fitting memorial to impact of a great thinker, author and humanitarian.

From the AU News Room:

Dr. Terry Anderson’s appointment as Canada Research Chair in distance education has been renewed for five years. He was presented with the award at the Convocation ceremony on June 10.

Leslie Chivers, communications director for MP Brian Jean, presented Dr. Terry Anderson with the documentation to officially renew his Canada Research Chair in Distance Education.

The CRC program, which is funded by the Government of Canada, will provide $500,000 in research funding over the next five years. Canada Research Chairs are selected by a college of reviewers, composed of experts from around the world, to recognize exceptional researchers, acknowledged by their peers as having the potential to lead in their field. Terry was first awarded the chair in distance education in 2001.

For the past five years, he has been investigating the kinds of interaction that occur among teachers and students in online learning environments and how the degree of interaction impacts learning, satisfaction and completion rates. Over the next five years, his research will focus on unpaced learning and how social software tools can build communities of learning online despite the individual nature of the process.

“Distance learning has come a long way since the days of mail-out exams,” Terry said. “Today’s technology allows for the near-instantaneous exchange of material between teacher and student and between students. The Internet challenges educators to look for ways of improving teacher-student interaction while creating cost-effective learning experiences.”

“Enhancing and expanding distance learning methods through research is a continuing priority for Athabasca University,” President Frits Pannekoek said. The university has specialized in university-level distance learning for over 30 years. It employs a variety of electronic technologies as well as print materials and telephone-tutoring in its teaching. More than 85 percent of AU’s courses are now wholly or partly online.

“Dr. Anderson’s research in network technology is vital for Athabasca University because it speaks directly to our mandate,” President Frits said. “Athabasca University is one of the world’s leading distance education specialists. By focusing on innovation in learning, we continue to remove barriers and makes exemplary post-secondary education more accessible.”

Terry is Tops

The accolades for Terry Anderson keep on coming. In a letter from Dr. Michele Jacobsen with the Canadian Journal of Learning and Technology (CJLT), she advises him of a prestigious recognition:

“It is my pleasure to inform you that you have been chosen to receive the 2006 CJLT Editor’s Award for your Volume 31, Issue 2, Spring 2005 article, Design-based Research and its Application to a Call Centre Innovation in Distance Education.

“The CJLT Editor’s Award is presented by the Editor of AMTEC’s Journal to an individual who has provided the most outstanding article to CJLT during that year. In making my recommendation for this award, I have relied entirely on feedback from the Editorial Board … your article emerged as the clear favorite.”

Terry’s article discusses a new methodology for distance education research and applied the model to work done with call centre innovation in AU’s School of Business.

In his acceptance comment at the CADE/AMTEC conference held in Montreal in May, Terry reminded delegates that at various times in his carreer he had submitted and had articles rejected from both CJTE and the CADE Journal, but that “one shouldn’t let such setbacks stop efforts to share the insights from one’s research and practice.”

Congratulations!

Another AU connection from the CADE conference: Liam Rourke, Ph.D. adjunct faculty in Centre for Distance Education and former Canadian Centre for Distance Education Research (CIDER) employee, now with Nanyang Technological University, won the Excellence in Graduate Research award.

This is not an April Fools joke, but a true story of near calamity.

Yesterday, I was pedaling my bike along Jasper Avenue, Edmonton’s main downtown street, on my usual commute home from work. I was listening to an album of Bach Organ concertos – the ones with the big rolling bass lines, when I felt a tug at my ear and an abrupt end to the concerto. Of course, I immediately slammed on the brakes and retrieved the cord that was dangling from my ear phones- sans MP3 player.

I should explain that my Creative Zen MP3 player is a few years old, and one with the large 20Gig drive, so its not tiny. Thus, when is inserted in addition to the compulsory Canadian Toque in a ski jacket pocket, there is very little room to spare. In fact, so little that an extra push on the pedals (Bach’s fault) expelled my player from my pocket to the road!!

Now for those who don’t know 20Gigs of hard drive holds a lot of music- like over 250 albums (all that I own, that I like to listen too) plus novels, podcasts, interview transcripts and assorted forgotten files from 3 years of use. Thus, I was chagrined at the prospect of losing both my player and its contents.

As I screeched to a stop and peered apprehensivly around I spied my MP3 on the pavement – but with a 70 passenger Edmonton Transit System bus bearing down on it’s hapless resting spot in the middle of the road. No time to scream, say a Hail Mary or do much else than give a mournful look of supplication to the driver and my Player disappeared under the bumper. An agonizing wait, then a rush as the big bus sped by and there it was – intact and waiting my retrieval.

I was thrilled. My player was safe! it had been spared, like a family in a Chevy Chase movie, by squeezing itself between the wheels and acting with cool self composure. Even better its leather case had protected it and I caught the end of the concerto when I plugged the ear phone back in.

Ahhh… Bliss!!! or as Jony Mitchell would say “you don’t know what you got ’til it’s (almost) gone.

Two interesting convergences tonight noted below:

First Stephen’s Downes’ daily batch of connective opportunity introduced me to WikiHow.

Second , having come home from pondering our sailing future with the crew in the pub

I had to type in “how to buy a sail boat”

The interesting and informative contribution by Syndi B , Tom Viren , Anonymous, Bob Palin , Jack H and others ends as follows

Notice and compare the responses above to those afforded by a similar article in a newspaper or book like Sailing for Dummies. Is there a mistake in the text? Would you like to share your experiences or add a nuance of wisdom that only you have acquired? Should your Brother read this article? Does your Dad only read Print copy? Shouldn’t you thank these guys??? Can I be a part of this community?

This is I Like!