As happens, I was doing one thing on the internet and ended up somewhere else – a very happy somewhere else. What started as a quick Twitter reply to George Veletsianos on a project of interest, landed me on his blog to read more about the project. To my excitement, I saw a familiar name. George is co-editing an Issues in Distance Education open access book series with Dr. Terry Anderson. Seeing Dr. Anderson’s name was a blast from my past and sent me on a trip down memory lane.
I think it’s fair to say that Dr. Anderson’s work has influenced me more than just about any educator that wasn’t one of my professors. Not only did I base my dissertation on his early Community of Inquiry work, but his name is peppered throughout my blog across the years. For example, I stalked him at AERA in 2008, wrote a class paper on Athabasca, and posted on my Blogger (!) account on Friday, December 09, 2005 about his Online End of Class Party that he wrote about on his Virtual Canuk blog. If you have ANY interest in the possibilities/challenges of facilitating online learning, READ HIS POST ABOUT THE PARTY! To this day, it brings me chills. I remember reading it like it was this morning.
In December of 2005, I was living in Manhattan and antsy in my career as an insurance underwriter. I was enrolled in my third continuing ed courses at NYU. That summer, I had started taking evening courses after work in both instructional design and e-commerce to test the waters on a new career path. I still have all of my files from those courses on my current laptop.
I knew I wanted to do something “e” (e.g., e-commerce, e-learning, etc.) but hadn’t quite figure out what. Given I had a BBA in Finance and an MBA, e-commerce seemed to make the most sense, so I created my first website from scratch at “createsimply.com” (a domain I’ve long since retired) thinking I’d sell crafts made by crafty people. Little did I know Etsy was launching their website at that very same time.
While I did make an attempt to sell a few knit hats I’d made, I quickly realized e-commerce wasn’t in the cards. Instead, I fell in LOVE with my instructional design courses. Both were taught online by Joanne Tzanis. We’ve long lost touch, but we did meet in person when I worked on a project for her at Baruch College. There is zero doubt that Joanne is the reason I’m doing what I do today. I didn’t know instructional design existed as a “thing” before I saw her course in the NYU catalog. I didn’t know what online learning was until Joanne modeled what an online learning experience should be, including blogging as a class activity that we did in her course. She opened my eyes to a whole new world and for that, I’m eternally grateful!
This is why – at the end of December 2005 – I was thrilled to read Terry Anderson’s blog post. Again, read it. While it’s just after-class musings by a professor tossed out into the ether, for me, it represents everything online education can and should be – caring, exploration, wonderment, sharing, and the joy of coming together to learn!
I was reminded this week that it’s important to stop and tell our teachers what they mean to us. Therefore, I thank Joanne Tzanis, Terry Anderson, and the countless other educators who have been amazing role models!