President's Corner
By
Hedy Lowenheim,
President
Well here we are, a few weeks before another ETL semester concludes.
Amazing how quickly it goes, though it may not seem this way when
you are in the midst of all the school-work and pressure. Unless you
are enrolling in a summer class, very soon you will have a few
months off to rest up before the fall semester rolls around. Or if
you happen to be lucky enough to be graduating this semester, you
will certainly have plenty of time to re-coop.
| This interaction and camaraderie among ETL students as well as with
active participation by professors enrich the overall distance learning
experience. |
This semester has certainly
been a challenging one for me,
since I am presently enrolled in EDUC 295-Quantitative Methods II
(statistics) with Professor Watkins. Though it is challenging, I
believe that it is an important class to take and if you have a good
group of students in the class, like I do, it helps a great deal.
Many students have been quite helpful in assisting those of us that
are more challenged by the concepts in this class. This interaction
and camaraderie among ETL students as well as with active
participation by professors enrich the overall distance learning
experience. For those of us who hope to continue in the field of
distance learning, it teaches us first-hand how important
interaction is among students as well as among students and their
professors.
To those ends, last month we introduced a column, “Utilizing the ETL
degree.” This month we have two excellent articles from alumni who
share how they are using their degrees in their present jobs. Alums
Derek Walter, from Fresno, California and
Tom Freeman, residing in
the Upper Peninsula in Michigan, have both written articles on this
very topic introduced in the last newsletter, I think you will find
very informative.
We also have submissions from Beth Hughes, Facilitator of
Educational Topics, originally from Baltimore, Maryland, now living
in Rome, Georgia and Jaime Stringer, Facilitator of Leadership
Topics, from Oneida, Tennessee. Beth writes a great
follow-up
article on Facebook (see the last ETLSO newsletter for
her first one
on this topic). Jamie writes a very informative article on an
open
source course management system that he recently implemented at the
community college where he is employed.
In this newsletter we are very pleased to have
an article by Prof. Michael Corry, Chairman of the ETL department.
His article focuses on how
to prepare to take the Comprehensive Exam that all ETL students
must pass in order to graduate. Prof. Corry provides us with some
excellent suggestions and tips in his article. If you have not yet
taken the Comps, I think you will find the information he provides
very helpful. We really appreciated his contribution to our
newsletter.
Thanks very much to everyone who contributed articles in this
current issue, it is very much appreciated! We also welcome
contributions from GWU faculty, and hope to include their articles
in future editions.
I would like to especially thank Joy Gayler, our VP of
Communication/Webmaster. Joy has done an amazing job the past few
years publishing a very professional looking ETLSO newsletter.
Taking two classes per semester while working full-time, she has
managed to find the time in her busy schedule to put the newsletter
together for us. Joy certainly must have excellent time management
skills. She has also been a pleasure to work with. But all good
things eventually come to an end and Joy will be graduating this
spring! Please join me in congratulating Joy and wishing her all the
best in her future endeavors.
The last business I need to cover pertains to our student
organization. Since many of the ETLSO officers will be graduating
this spring or fall semester there will be several open positions.
Without student volunteers the ETLSO would not exist. If anyone is
interested in filling the VP of Communication/Webmaster position or
any of the other ones, please email me at
hlowen@gwu.edu. If you
would like to explore any of these officer opportunities, please
contact me, I am certain that you will find it to be a rewarding
experience. I look forward to hearing from you!
I also want to congratulate those of you who are graduating this
spring and wish you the best of luck! You should be very proud of
your accomplishments. Please stay in touch and consider writing an
article for future newsletters. Many of you have very valuable work
and educational experiences that many of us can learn and benefit
from.
Good luck with the rest of the semester.
Hedy Lowenheim
hlowen@gwu.edu
President of ETLSO
Albany, New York |
The ETLSO needs you to keep it going!!
Officer positions
that will be open in the coming months:
-VP of Communication/Webmaster
-Facilitator of Educational Topics
-Facilitator of Leadership Topics
-Facilitator of Technical Topics
-President
If anyone is interested in filling any of these positions, please email Hedy
at hlowen@gwu.edu.
|
WWW.ETLSO.ORG
Update your bookmarks! The ETLSO now has its own web domain:
www.etlso.org.
We are working on getting our Moodle site, weblog, wiki and other
services available. If you have experience with any of these
technologies and would like to help, please email Hedy at hlowen@gwu.edu.
|
Graduating?
If you're graduating this May, your gwu.edu e-mail will very soon be
non-functional! Please update
your e-mail address to keep receiving our newsletter.
|
|
