EDTEC Faculty Activities Marcie Bober This semester, I have been engaged in a number of evaluation efforts associated with federally or state-funded technology grants in place in local area schools. Though there are considerable differences in implementation among the projects, collectively they can be described as multi-partner educational collaboratives that integrate technology with standards-based reform efforts to create unique learning opportunities for students and teachers. Triton, which ends as a formal program in September 2000, will be showcased at a Project Director's meeting (attended by representatives from all grantees) in April. I'm also serving in an evaluation capacity on a grant that seeks to use technology as a lever to revitalize pre-service education. In recent months, I've made several presentations (CLMS, AEA, AECT, SITE) on topics ranging from professional development for K-12 educators, to evaluative systems associated with distance education programs leading to terminal degrees, to the benefits and challenges of evaluation field work for graduate students seeking advanced degrees in educational technology. Bob Hoffman I received a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to create a multimedia virtual reality California Mission with a corresponding museum docent training curriculum for 4th grade students and teachers. With the department's Sandbox team, headed by EDTEC alum Stuart Grossman, I'm working on a grant from the Japan-US Friendship Commission to create a Digital Culture Resource on the last 50 years of US-Japanese relations with an emphasis on educational and cultural influences. The Sandbox team just completed a project to create about a dozen "learning objects" on topics ranging from Knowledge Management to Multimedia Animation and Instructional Visualization. The objects are currently used by students in the Department's face-to-face and distributed learning courses. Donn Ritchie I spent the first nine months of 1999 out of the country. From January until July, I served as a Fulbright Senior Scholar to the island of Cyprus. There I worked with the Ministries of Education for both the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities. To go to the north of the island, I had to traverse three checkpoints, including the UN demilitarized zone. My position was helping teachers and administrators find ways to integrate technology into the curriculum. After leaving Cyprus, my family and I spent two weeks in Tanzania, visiting national parks and climbing to the top of Mt. Kilimanjaro. The other piece of international work I was involved in was a week consulting in Australia, including serving as the Keynote Speaker at the Queensland Society for Information Technology in Education Conference in Brisbane. Allison Rossett In February, 00, I delivered the Peter Dean Keynote at the Association for Educational Communications and Technology in Long Beach. My topic was, "Knowledge Management: More than a Buzz Word." In the past year, I've collaborated with our current students and alumni. Here are some efforts that have been published: Rossett, A. & Tobias, C. (1999). An empirical study of the journey from training to performance. Performance Improvement Quarterly, 12(3), 31-43. Rossett, A., & Marshall, J. (1999). Signposts on the road to knowledge management. In K. P. Kuchinke (Ed.), Proceedings of the 1999 AHRD Conference:Vol. 1 (pp. 496-503). Baton Rouge, LA: Academy of Human Resource Development. Watson, J. W. and Rossett, A. (January, 1999.) Guiding the independent learner in web-based instruction. Educational Technology, XXXIX(3), 27-36. Several joint efforts are in press: Marshall, J. & Rossett, A. (in press). Knowledge management for school-based educators. In J. Michael Spector (Ed.), Integrated & Holistic Perspectives on Learning, Instruction & Technology: Improving Our Understanding of Complex Domains. The Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers. Hartt, D. C. & Rossett, A. (in press). When Instructional Design Student Consult with the Real World. Performance Improvement. Fred Saba I have been on sabbatical since February 2000, which has given me a chance to establish design principles for "next generation" distance learning systems. Next generation systems are driven by self-organized activities of the learner and exhibit non-linear, dynamic behavior. These systems are bound to radically change the current offering of distance education programs, which generally follow the "brick and mortar" model of teaching. While on sabbatical, I also visited one of the leading distance education companies in Sweden. Here is my report from the trip: Dr. Farhad Saba Professor of Educational Technology returned from a 12-day tour of Sweden. The trip was sponsored by UKD Inc. the largest distance education company in the country. Sweden according to the February 7, 2000 European Edition of Newsweek magazine just surpassed the United States in achieving the number one position in computer and Internet penetration and high-technology capital formation in the world. Signs from many high technology companies ranging from Sun Micro System to Dell and Erricson atop office buildings on the road side from the airport to the capital city of Stockholm reinforced Newsweek's claim. Distance education is rapidly growing in the Sweden, not only to overcome space and climate barriers, but to provide new training to the 10% unemployed in the country. Most people in Sweden are fluent in English, and are rapidly adopting information technology solutions to develop the economic base of their country by offering high-technology products and services to the rest of the world. UKD Inc., a high technology training and human resource development company is interested in a range of cooperative efforts with San Diego State University as well as other universities throughout the US in expanding its distance education activities worldwide. For more information, please contact Fred Saba at fsaba@mail.sdsu.edu.