Closing the Gap - UMUC

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▼ 22 ▼ 22 John Aje Associate Dean, Academic Affairs I am a hiker a father of four a chemical engineer from Nigeria a nature lover an 11-year veteran of UMUC a member of the President’s Club a donor to Partners in Progress Partners in Progress is a collaboration between UMUC and a neighboring high school. This unique program gives deserving students the financial and academic support they need to pursue a college education. It is only one of many UMUC scholarship programs that help make higher education accessible. By contributing to a scholarship fund, you can help provide a world-class university education to serious learners, regardless of time or place. We invite you to join your fellow alumni in supporting UMUC students. There is no better investment in the future. For your convenience, a postage-paid envelope is enclosed. Established 1947 100+ Programs 150 Locations Worldwide & Online ▼ UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND UNIVERSITY COLLEGE ▼ 22
“WebTycho” continued from page 15 Wayne Precht (assistant director of Information Technology) offered another dimension to the discussion: I am not an instructor, nor have I ever taken an online course. But I have been programming distance education systems for more than 12 years here at UMUC—first with the PLATO system, then Tycho (frequently referred to as DOSTycho and WinTycho, though that refers to the client used to access it; the server side was the same), and now WebTycho. I have worked closely with faculty, especially when rolling out a new system, and I frequently skim through the running classes to get a sense of how things are going. This technology is in a constant state of evolution, but the underlying paradigms remain: conferencing as the main, asynchronous communication; e-mail (or “personal notes,” as they were called in the PLATO days) for communicating one to one. In many ways, as advanced as the Web version is over previous versions, it is still catching up to PLATO. I could make a one-to-one mapping of most of the PLATO features to Tycho to WebTycho. Maybe I will do that just to trace the intersystem anthropology. Beverly Morris ’99 (applications developer, Information Technology) gave us a look into the future of online education at UMUC: I have been working with WebTycho since 1998, and have taken online courses myself. I think the greatest improvement occurred in WebTycho during the past two years with the transition to WebTycho 2.x. That version and subsequent versions have largely been a response to the needs expressed by our distance education customers. Earlier in this conference, there was discussion regarding the committees that worked together to define the progression of distance education at UMUC. One of the most important pieces in the distance education puzzle is the user. In 1998, Team WebTycho began extensively polling its user base with usability studies and surveys. The technical evaluation (still in use) provided a vehicle for direct feedback from all WebTycho users. The future of WebTycho took on a new direction in response to that feedback. The usability studies helped define the navigation and interface areas of WebTycho that required updates or redesign by initiating testing sessions with a variety of users. While the committees and advisory groups played a key role in the development of the software, it was imperative to tap the open resource of customer opinion. The surveys and feedback from the end users still provide valuable input to the WebTycho development team. Cindy Whitesel brought the discussion full circle when she posted the final response: Hi, Everyone! 17 UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND UNIVERSITY COLLEGE It’s fun to see familiar names in the WebTycho conferences! Except for Beverly Morris, I recognize you all. I remember how exciting it was to be teaching writing online where students had to write to communicate. A novel idea developed—that students might have to participate in order to learn. In the online classroom, everyone participated and I got to know students better than I ever had. From there came another novel idea—that the classroom could be student-centered, that we could actually focus on the students and actually see in writing what they were learning and what they were thinking. When I could read through students’ thinking processes, I became much better at helping them learn the material. The early days were eye-opening for those of us who were open to new or innovative teaching strategies. In order to teach online, we teachers had to focus on what we were doing as teachers. In order to do that, we had to focus on what we wanted our students to learn. As we developed our notions of what studentcentered teaching was about, we had to examine how we taught and what we expected. Our students had to do the same. Rich and Nate may remember those early years in faculty training when a group of us came together to learn what it meant to teach online. Our training was more than “education management”— we were really relearning what it meant to be teachers. We were also learning how much more learning we could expect—and get—from our students. Although I never participated in those teacher surveys, Wayne may remember my stopping by to visit in IT. I’d often see Wayne or John and we’d have a conversation about the system, what it was doing or not doing, and what might make it better. I saw such a dedicated team of developers who seemed to actually enjoy their work as much as I enjoyed teaching. —Cindy
Page 1 and 2: THE ALUMNI MAGAZINE OF UNIVERSITY O
Page 3 and 4: COVER STORY, page 6 Closing the Gap
Page 5 and 6: Brit Kirwan Assumes Role as Chancel
Page 7 and 8: UMUC Partners with Joint Forces Sta
Page 9 and 10: The numbers tell the story. For Ame
Page 11 and 12: investment highly worthwhile, espec
Page 13 and 14: For UMUC faculty members Megan Hurl
Page 15 and 16: While he admits to being an “old-
Page 17: was glad to see a Windows environme
Page 21 and 22: CLASS NOTES CLASS NOTES EVERETT H.
Page 23 and 24: CLASS NOTES CLASS NOTES EMMETT PAIG
Page 25 and 26: GETTING INTO THE VOLUNTEER SPIRIT W
Page 27 and 28: February 18, 2003 Alumni Associatio
Page 29 and 30: Alumni Happy Hours at UMUC’s Orac
Page 31 and 32: Dear Alumni and Friends of UMUC: As
Page 33 and 34: PRESIDENT’S CLUB CIRCLE Lifetime
Page 35 and 36: Lawrence E. Anderson ‘89 Patrick
Page 37 and 38: Nicholas E. Bayer ’98 MGA Arthur
Page 39 and 40: Frank A. Halstead ’96 John Hamilt
Page 41 and 42: NEW VP FOR ADVANCEMENT BRINGING WEA
Page 43 and 44: Brenda E. Tillman ’00 John H. Til
Page 45 and 46: Robert O. Barry ’94 Margaret C. B
Page 47 and 48: Richard A. Buckshaw ’94 Sylvia M.
Page 49 and 50: Joel K. Core Mary C. Core ’95 MGA
Page 51 and 52: Thomas S. Dommel ’86 Maria M. Don
Page 53 and 54: Gerard J. Gallagher ’93 Lawrence
Page 55 and 56: Frank M. Hastie ’81 & ’85 Glori
Page 57 and 58: David A. Jennings ’00 Maurice P.
Page 59 and 60: Kevin G. Laurila ’95 Barbara J. L
Page 61 and 62: Andrew M. McCombe ’90 Antoinette
Page 63 and 64: Ivornette L. Nelson ’97 Joyce M.
Page 65 and 66: SERENA COOK—ON HER WAY UP No two
Page 67 and 68: Cal A. Richards ’96 Hugh O. Richa
Page 69 and 70:
Frances Sidman-Butchart Jacqueline
Page 71 and 72:
Michael Teruel ’95 Emil A. Teshei
Page 73 and 74:
Clinton C. West Jr. ’97 Darrell L
Page 75 and 76:
Gerald Heeger, President Sandy Harr
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