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Karen O'Connor (then Karen Johnson) was an active participant in the Tertiary Community Colleges Online Conference in April 1998 who responded warmly to Steve McCarty's keynote address call to to turn online education into a new professional discipline, and so joined the discussion group which shaped the original objectives and structure of WAOE and held its first election of Directors. |
In fact, Karen holds a special place in the annals of WAOE. The synchronous chat and message board Mihkel Pilv (now Vice-President) organised to allow discussion group colleagues to offer their congratulations and share in the celebration of Karen's marriage on a global scale at the very early teething stage of the Association constituted our first online event .
Karen teaches in the Department of Applied Business Technology at Selkirk College in Trail, British Columbia (Canada), and has done so for more than 15 years. By the time she first became involved in WAOE, Karen already held a training certificate in Microsoft Access95 and the developers toolkit, had several innovative computer courses under her belt, and was busy putting her Department's core courses online, using FrontPage98. One of her courses, Database Design With Access97, was inspired by an educational partnership between Microsoft and the National Business Educator's Association.
Presently, Karen carries key responsibility for the Department of Applied Business Technology's (DABT) On-line Classrooms, through which the entire Office Administration Program is available by distance education. This role is focused intensively on providing information services and support to students, including Webmastery and management of the DABT Online Classrooms home page, and conduct of the DABT Course Home Web, a message board and discussion group handling students' queries.
As at October last year, Karen had 13 courses on-line and 13 other courses being offered face to face but being developed for online delivery. There were 51 people registered in the on-line program who were enrolled between them in 220 individual courses covering 19 subjects. Enrolment in the program has now grown to over 320 students taking 25 subjects. This massive increase has occurred within a very short time and with minimal use of advertising, which attests both to the rapidly expanding demand for access to online distance education and the enviable reputation which Karen's own program has established for itself, largely through word of mouth by its student participants.
Even with that degree of recent growth, the DABT online program may seem relatively small, at least in terms of raw student enrolments, But it is a complex and demanding progtram in terms of the number and variety of courses and subjects it offers and also, of course, the additional managerial and student support loads that effective online education methods demand. Karen's success in developing and managing the program is a prime example of what can be achieved in online education through the skill, dedication and drive of a single individual. Her efforts and achievements are warmly acknowledged by her Department and College on their Web pages. A more striking accolade is the honour recently conferred on Karen by the British Columbia Educational Technology User Group and the Centre for Curriculum, Transfer and Technology among its inaugural Innovation Awards in Educational Technology (1999).
These annual awards are designed to distinguish educational technology innovators in the British Columbia public post-secondary system. They recognize individuals, teams, departments or an institution or institutions that have clearly demonstrated achievement in the use of educational technology to improve the teaching and learning process for students. Karen's particular honour - the Bright Shiny Object award - goes to the nominee who demonstrates high risk and ground breaking use of educational technology. The citation reads, in part:
Karen O'Connor's determination and leadership has made this program the first in Canada to offer all ABT courses online via the Internet. Selkirk College in its support of Karen and her department, have certainly broken new ground in its sophisticated use of this
technology to expand access to its program.
Congratulations, Karen, from us all!
In each issue of WEB a different member introduces him- or herself and talks about experiences and interests in online education and training. Drawing on the information and URLs provided on their registration forms, the WEB Editor is targetting individual members who are doing especially innovative and exciting things in online education with requests to provide a brief profile.
But why wait to be asked? All WEB readers are urged to use the Memberās Profile to help flesh out the person behind the impersonal email address youāre known by in WAOE. We are a member's organisation - reMEMBER!! Just a short piece will do. As well as giving us some background information, weād like you to tell colleagues why you joined WAOE, what you hope to gain from your involvement, and what you would like to contribute.