Central administration’s effort for creating an integrated approach for how the four NU campuses provide online distance education opportunities is moving forward.  A centralized website listing all distance programs is being created.  Two communities of practice are being formed – one focused on instructional design and development and one on student services – that will engage the four NU campuses in discussion to better link our students. 

Bev Russell (EE&O), Jim Schmidt (Economics), and Dave Gosselin (Natural Resources) will be UNL’s representatives for the instructional design community.  Donna Menke (EE&O), Nathan Fuerst (Admissions) and Tiffany Heng-Moss (Entomology) will be UNL’s representative on the student services community.

Please join the EE&O team in welcoming our newest member, Danielle Dubuc-Pedersen, as Director of Marketing and Customer Service.  Danielle brings over 20 years of experience in marketing in a variety of industries including higher education, telecommunications, manufacturing, e-commerce, professional services, and consulting. Although a Nebraska native, Danielle is new to the UNL campus.  Along with her colleagues, she will be visiting with many of the colleges and departments to learn more about each and to help strengthen the ability of individual academic units to extend key programs in a virtual environment. 

If you would like to know more about how EE&O marketing can help you bring your distance programs to life in cyberspace, please call Danielle at 472-2227.

Summer Independent Study (SIS) courses are a great way for students to take summer courses and keep on track for graduation. Through partnerships with UNL colleges, EE&O offers a broad selection of over 70 courses giving students the opportunity to meet prerequisites, core and possibly graduation requirements. Many undecided students take SIS courses to explore other academic majors or career interest areas.

While all courses use Blackboard, no two courses are necessarily the same. One course may consist of reading the required books and writing papers about the material, while another may require minimal writing, but frequent online coursework. Others have a final exam once students return in August. The course design is up to the faculty member.  Student grades are posted in the fall semester.

Teaching SIS courses gives faculty flexibility with their research activities and travel away from campus during the summer while also earning summer pay.  For many faculty members, teaching a SIS course is their first exposure to distance education.

A call for Summer 2010 SIS course to be taught by faculty will be issued this fall. For more information, contact Debbi Wicks, Program Coordinator, 472-1361.

For the past 15 years, David  Gosselin, professor of Earth Science in the School of Natural Resources and Director of UNL’s Environmental Studies program, has developed educational programs focused on Earth systems science.

Dr. Gosselin has worked with K-12 educators through traditional classroom teaching, summer workshops and, most recently, the delivery of the online, distance-delivered courses as part of a Laboratory Earth professional development series.

One of Dr. Gosselin‘s goals is to provide a learning environment that allows students to develop a better appreciation of what science is, and thus learning more about science as a result. To further this goal, Dr. Gosselin received a NASA grant in Earth Systems Science education that supported the development of ways to use NASA’s online resources in an educational context. As a result of his work on the NASA grant, Dr. Gosselin received a Toyota USA Foundation Grant. This grant has helped address the need for improved distance learning science education opportunities for K-12 classroom teachers that focus on inquiry integration and application.

2009 CACUBO Higher Education Accounting Workshop
May 18-19, 2009
The 2009 CACUBO Higher Education Accounting Workshop will be held at the Chicago Marriott – O’Hare Hotel in Chicago. This workshop is hosted by the Central Association of College and University Business Officers (CACUBO) and is part of their on-going educational programs.

Annual Heartland Regional Conference on Aging: New Approaches to Aging Communities
June 2-3, 2009
Decisions made today will set us on a course for eventual success or failure about healthy aging in our communities between now to 2030. The Annual Heartland Regional Aging Conference will address healthy aging as an important emerging community issue. The conference will also address aging in place options and its importance to both the community and senior.

Nine months ago, a course design team started to tackle the development of a new Independent Study High School Biology series. The team wanted to create a journey for students into the realm of all living things. They wanted students to learn about the ecology of the planet, how the cells that make up all living things function and reproduce, the role of genetics in their daily lives, and how evolution has changed the organisms that inhabit the Earth. The team knew students had to learn about solutions, thermochemistry, reactions, electrochemistry, hydrocarbon compounds, functional groups, life chemistry, and nuclear chemistry.

The course design team consisted of course author, Tracie Chapo, who teaches Biology and other sciences at Lincoln North Star High School; Paul Donahue, Independent Study High School science teacher; Judith Montgomery, EE&O Instructional Design Specialist, and other members of the EE&O high school curriculum team.

To make biology come alive for students, the course has hands-on and virtual labs along with online reflections relating scientific principles to students’ own lives, interactive multimedia elements, audio and visual segments, connections to careers, links to meaningful websites, and numerous other readings and activities.

Before receiving her teaching degree from the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, course author Tracie Chapo obtained an associate’s degree in Exotic Animal Training and Management from Moorpark College in California.

This prepared her for a ten-year career in zoo keeping.  Through her experience and close association with the Lincoln Children’s Zoo, the team was able to film behavioral training sessions such as those with Toni the seal and a segment on the physical adaptations that allow camels to survive in harsh environments. Another film features Tracie’s therapy dog, Roswell, to demonstrate homologous structures.

In addition, faculty in UNL’s Agronomy and Horticulture department gave permission to use photographs and informative video segments on the genetics and processes used in the development of new varieties of wheat and corn.

Finally, the textbook publisher, Glencoe/McGraw Hill, gave permission to use the virtual labs and other narrated, interactive, multimedia presentations that accompany the textbook. The result of the team’s hard work is a rigorous, college preparatory biology series that engages student in a journey of learning about living things on Earth.