Memberâs Profile

Carolyn Louper-Morris

After being an on-land professor of political science for 23 years, I left the U.S. and went to live in India, West Africa and Haiti.  After my Haitian experience, I found myself returning to an exploding world of computer technology.  It seemed everyone was involved.  A voice (obviously from my ancestors) said to me, "commit."  So I did.  I committed myself to this new revolution, this new technology.  Initially, the question was, "what will I do?"  The answer was, "do what you do best, contribute to the educational process."  Create educational software to help students.

So, I set out to do just that.  I went to Georgetown University's bookstore one day and saw a student browsing the shelves.  I asked her "do you buy study tools?"  She replied "no."  I said "why not?"  She said "because they never say what my professor says."  "Bingo," I said, "that's the answer."  The software must allow the student to study to what the professor says.  Instantly, CyberStudy 101 was born.  It would allow a student to put their class notes in and we would generate a test from those notes.

Starting The Enterprise Company was truly a rewarding new experience.  Although I had previously left the University for the private sector several times before, I left this time, resigning my tenure with no intentions of returning.  This was it.  It was my new life and it was my opportunity to be in on the new revolution.

But setting out to produce what is now called an on-line learning environment, with an ASP base was not easy.  Long sleepless nights with programmers who were focused only on programming and refused to develop GUI screens, and designing a product that I perceived to help students with the point and click was not just difficult but 'damn' difficult.  There was one student question that drove me throughout most of the new design, "what's going to be on the test?"

So, CyberStudy 101  was the answer.  What ever any professor said, in any form, could be tested to.  The product was born to provide those needs.

Thankfully, matching study skills and learning modalities with the point and click was relatively simple.  I reflected on how and why MY students performed poorly, and identified the frustration points where my teaching strategies increased performance.  Early in my career, I knew that students really wanted to learn, but in this new era, they wanted it easy, quick and painless.  Students wanted everything necessary for the test; sandwiched between work, partying and spring break.  They were beginning to like the computer because it was quick and easy and, most of all, they were beginning to require that computer exercises be fun and exciting - you know, play station, et al.

Like it or not, students have come to enjoy playing on the computer, and if learning is a by-product, so be it.  And, we should make no mistake, computer/Internet education is fun (because many of us who design products know that it must be fun) and, the quantity of information that comes to the student in a short period of time is considerable.  I was talking to another student at George Mason University one afternoon, and I asked him when was he going to graduate?  He said "never," because nowhere else could he get access to all of the information that he wanted but through the University.  He further said, "I love this new stuff that comes over the net.  I want it coming all day and night."

That may sound strange to some of you reading this, but just think about it.  Students point and click at least 50 times per hour.  That means that they are getting 50 different images and different information in that time.  Clearly, "riding the wave of the future" is fast, easy, safe and information aplenty.

I'm really enjoying my new opportunities to educate in CyberSpace.  As CEO and President of The Enterprise Company, I'm doing it all.  I'm an accrediting association, classroom and faculty senate along with marketing, advertising and personnel agency.  CyberStudy 101  is currently involved in another new marketing campaign "IE2000"  which expands our student and teacher base to 60 K-12 educational institutions.  That campaign will offer unique opportunities for our 2,900+ teacher/customers to get graduate credit from using our product, learn how to move classroom instruction to the Internet and ultimately, become the "new millennium teacher and become members of the WAOE."

I'm training my son (whose primary profession is lawyer/lobbyist) to be VP of the company, thereby increasing his business acumen as well as his involvement in advancing the new technology.

But, as one of my friends predicted, I'm back in the saddle again.  Not teaching on-land or running political campaigns, but teaching an on-line Instructional Design course and learning to train teachers on-line along with expanding content on CyberStudy 101.   I'm looking forward to an active role in WAOE.  Hopefully I will be involved in answering many of the questions that will ultimately shape on-line education. For example, addressing such questions as "What is Internet education?"  More importantly, what is on-line academic freedom as well as the pros and cons of targeted advertisement in on-line environments.

Lastly, I'm writing a paper for a conference being held by The University of Hawaii.  Needless to say, I look forward to a new experience that would allow me to present my paper: "Dreaming off the coast of Venus, Instructional challenges met in CyberSpace."

I'm glad to be a member of WAOE.  "I want to be there when it's finally decided how to move the classroom onto the Internet."