I'm Al Mizell. I'm at Nova Southeastern University currently
I'm coordinator of special incentives. But to go back a
little bit, I was a math and science teacher in
K to 12 mostly middle and high schools from
1956 until 1968. I took two years out for
the army in Germany. I was a platoon leader
and education officer and I've been involved in education most
of my career. Um When I finished my,
well, when I first decided to go away for
a sabbatical was in 1968 when Florida had a big
teacher strike and I was chairman of the science department
at a new high school that was going to be
innovative in the use of technology. And so at
that time I was very enthusiastic. Our school was
well funded. We had all kinds of innovative creative
things, uh differentiated classes and different sizes and independent
study and so on. And we were using some
of the newest technology with overhead projectors and 16 MB
movies and slide projectors. And we just thought we
were really yet. But then in 68 the whole
state went on strike and our principal had said that
if we went on strike that he would be supportive
and so we went on strike and he stayed in
and did not go out. So half of the
third of the faculty stayed in with him and two
thirds went out, a third of them on sick
leave, unbeknown to the rest of us, and
a third of us giving out money to be out
for those two weeks when the strike was over.
And we all went back, the school was divided
in the thirds And it was so disruptive and so
disheartening. I said I've been here 12 years this
time, take a sabbatical. So I did.
I applied in California with DR Finn and I thought
that that sounded like one of the best known programs
around. Unfortunately with their grant program they did not
make a decision. And it kept holding off holding
off and finally got towards summer when I was going
to be leaving and didn't have a decision. I
called out and talked to Dr Finn and said you
know I've got to know am I N or not
? And at that point he said well if you've
got to know now then the answer is no.
And I said okay. So I went to the
library and started looking for instructional technology programs and someone
had mentioned to me indiana University. So I looked
it up well I'll apply there, didn't know anybody
or anything. And when I did I was able
to talk with Deane Larson and he was so warm
, so cordial and offered me a assistantship and I
said that's it. So I went to IU went
to do my head specialists during my sabbatical year.
Or I got so wrapped up in the program because
my teaching assistants uh the A. G. Jim
Russell uh Tom Schwerin People that we've known in 18
CT for a long time. Uh We're just such
marvelous people plus all of the faculty who were so
involved in A E. C. T. Deane
Larson Gene Farris of course Tom Schwinn member Sherman.
Just so many of our names and having had them
as professors there. I couldn't help but get involved
with A. C. T. And I went
to my first conference while I was there and then
I had a chance to apply for a fellowship at
IU which I did ended up staying for another year
to do the doctrine. And Don Larson said I'm
changing the name from instructional technology, I can see
the future and we're gonna make it instructional systems technology
. And he said, what a crazy guy,
you know, who's ever heard of that? Why
would we want a title like that? But we
were stuck with it. Well, of course,
as it turned out he was a seizure of the
future and I asked, t certainly became something well
known, probably some because of his influence. I
contacted my school system Dade County in Miami and said
, you know, I have my doctorate now,
I'm ready to come back teach science. And they
said, well with instructional television, we really don't
need that mean science teachers anymore. So the only
thing we can offer you is a junior high science
teaching job. And I said, you know,
I'm now into instructional systems and design, I really
think I could do more. And they said,
well that's all we have. And about that time
, the president of a new community college in Columbia
Maryland came through indiana and said I'm starting a new
college and I'm looking for someone in charge of the
library instructional technology and instructional design and it's all gonna
be systems approach. And of course that was the
whole key of what I had been learning. So
I ended up applying and got the position at Howard
Community College and Dade County. That man, I
had to pay back my sabbatical. So signed a
long term agreement to pay just a little bit every
year for many years, went to Howard Community College
and every faculty member when they came in had to
raise their right hand and say, I swear I
believe in the systems approach, put their hand down
and say, okay, now what's the systems approach
? So ended up designing a whole series of workshops
uh in a cafeteria sort of arrangement where they could
come in with a menu and start out with task
analysis, behavioral objectives et cetera et cetera. And
every term before each semester that would have workshops that
they were required to go through and they would progress
and their courses would progress and their pay was tied
to how their courses progressed until they got up to
the stage that they finished the entire instructional design for
their course over a period of about three years and
they then were subjected to a peer review where other
faculty members would come in and sit in on their
classes and help help them improve their design. Okay
. Uh It was a wonderful experience and I shared
a lot of that through A. E. C
. T. And was able to constantly attend A
. E. C. T. Every year 1976
I applied for a sabbatical again because an opportunity came
up at Purdue University with Sam Postlewait from audit tutorial
things and he was running a Sloan and lily grant
for a year for new doctorates and for mid career
doctorates. And so I applied for that and was
accepted. So 14 of us spent a year at
Purdue and at the same time continuing our conference activities
. And when I got back to Howard Community College
I had designed my work. So it was taken
over by a psychology professor and institutionalized most of what
I did. And they let me know that I
had done that very well to the point that they
didn't need me anymore. But because I've done sabbatical
they owed me a year because I owed them a
year. So they had me for another year and
I was able to hunt all over the country for
another position. Similar to that, I said I'd
go anywhere in the world except back to south florida
. And I interviewed 19 places including Botswana and Saudi
Arabia. And everywhere where I finally ended up was
south florida. So we can't plan what's gonna work
out. I saw an ad in the Chronicle that
said one and two innovative creative E D D s
and I thought, wow. And I checked into
it and it was at nova southeastern. Well,
at that time, nobody university and in my mind
, nobody university was not in south florida was further
up north. So when I went for an interview
, found out guess what it's in Fort Lauderdale.
But I was so taken with the opportunities there and
the idea of distance learning in its early stages.
Of course, distance learning at that time was weekend
classes around the country at hotels or colleges fly the
professor in um and use the telephone saying that was
our technology. We were criticized all over the place
of course. But through A E. C.
T. Because we started using computers. When the
first apples came out and teaching classes that I designed
, we decided that we would through a CT offer
a workshop. So in the very early days we
offered one workshop on the use of Apple computers.
We had standing room only here. It was just
amazing. So the next year we organized five workshops
and had various people offering different uh having used anywhere
from the little Sinclair through the one person from texas
, drove in with the band full of apples.
We had radio shacks and just about anything you could
think of and these of course were all full from
that. We created the microcomputer task force for A
. C. T. Figuring that computers were gonna
spread throughout every division. We didn't need a separate
division for computers as it turned out disk formed.
Which, if I recall was our computer division that
did end up being the main focus for computers.
Um In 1984 at Nova I had the idea to
create a doctor program in computer education online. Now
at that time the technology was such that and used
a uh£28 transportable Zorba computer five inch screen CPM
operating system. And the students would meet twice a
year bring their computers on the plane around the bus
with them. And we would hold classes for a
week. But the way we did it was one
week they would meet in the main campus and at
least get to know their home campus. The other
week was in the winter and we met with A
. C. T. And my idea was is
we're going to have all these doctoral students running around
here In the mobile program and we're going to take
over 80. c.t. And for a few years
we did have a very large influence on disk and
uh it seemed like it was really heading there well
as things went on, we're having trouble financially making
enough to cover all the expenses because we had an
advisory board of people like Sylvia Sharpe, the editor
in chief of the TNG Journal and samples await and
uh number of names from uh here D mail came
in for a while with us and other folks that
were well known at A E C. T.
And these folks would come to each of our institutes
and meet with the students. There was a unique
opportunity for the students to be able to interact with
the names on the field um, but because I
was having trouble making enough profit on it to make
it continue that way. It was combined over with
the computer science division and became part of other programs
. It still exists today, but it's over in
computer science and I'm in the school of that,
the division of distance learning I was a member of
because as you know, you can belong to all
the different organizations without any extra costs, but it's
hard to be active in more than one. And
since I was now more involved with distance learning than
I was with instructional design of course the two can't
be separated. I became more involved with the distance
learning division the last year when I was called and
said, you know, don't you want to apply
To become an officer? And I thought that's the
last thing I needed my age and I'm 75 now
and still working in on the board for Florida Distance
Learning Association and I just don't need to take on
that much more. But they convinced me you know
you can run you probably won't get it but you
can run. So I've done that before when I
ran for her secretary of A. C. T
. With the assumption that someone else like Dave graph
uh did get it and that was a relief at
the time. But to help out I'd be the
second name, well I did end up as president
president elect first and then president and I found it
to be a really great experience. It's worth it
for anyone who's thinking of moving up in leadership at
all become an office or a board member and then
an officer in the division and then you can move
into a U. C. T. Leadership.
You get to know some wonderful people and it's a
networking experience and you also get to stay up on
the latest things that are happening and work with others
. I've enjoyed my experience with A C. T
. I'm also working with us D. L.
A. And I'm hoping to see the two of
us who work together closer. I think that there's
just so many opportunities and most important I think it's
the network and the people we've made here. Uh
huh. Anything else about the association overall you've seen
it grow and change. You made some references to
the grow and drinking growing drink. Uh You've made
some reference to the changes in divisions and such.
What do you think about the overall association? What's
what's your sort of take on historical aberration? Well
, of course, when the association started out,
I was so entranced because it had the largest exhibit
area of any conference I've ever seen and I spent
much of my time on the exhibit floor. Uh
then I got involved in the various sessions and found
the value of all the different divisions that you could
go back and forth between topics and strands. Uh
, but we were looking at 10,000 people coming through
the conference. It was huge. As time has
evolved more and more associations and conferences have been offered
and the membership gets spread out and we become smaller
. I find that you're closer, you're tied in
with people, more with interests of your, similar
to yours. And uh, at least for me
, I've become more involved rather than being a observer
. More of a participant in can benefit from it
being small. I do miss the exhibits. I
would like to see somehow that we were combined with
someone who had a lot of exhibits again. I
thought the shootouts, those sort of things were wonderful
. In fact, in the division of distance learning
, one of our colleagues who I used to do
joint presentations with here, Dr Marshall Burmeister passed on
an unexpected day last year. And so we've developed
a series of competitions on distance learning for next year
For 2011 um mainly in her honor, their being
supported and funded by I. P. The info
age publishing. And so they want to be known
as the I. A. P. Awards.
Okay. But that one of those that I would
like to develop for the future is a shootout of
some type. It won't be technology equipment as such
, but it could be practices and distance learning or
techniques or something of that sort or a comparison of
course management systems. Uh, and that's fuzzy at
this point. But some of those sort of things
that got us so involved. AC. T.
with its various divisions is a complicated structure. I
look at the Florida Educational Technology Conference that is still
seven or 8000 people. They have a much simpler
program and I keep asking why it's easier to find
my way around there than here. And then I
realized it's because we have a structure that has so
many divisions that makes us I guess eclectic and yet
we can bounce around if there's something of interest to
us in another area that we wouldn't normally get to
see or go to if everybody was all the same
. So even though we're small, we still have
variety and we can cross fertilize somebody considering becoming a
member of act who isn't gonna have a chance to
meet you until they come to a conference. What
would you say there? They find this stuff on
the web, they they're listening, looking at what
we've put together. What what sort of advice or
counsel would you give somebody who is considering? Probably
one of the best things is when you can find
a mentor, someone who you respect was involved in
active and let them guide you. And that's one
of the things I like when you first come to
the conference with the first timer session. But now
with the mentor program, you can actually follow somebody
for a couple of hours and you get to know
someone the way to get involved. I know if
the BBL board last year, uh one of the
participants who was here for the first time when I
came to the board meeting, because board meetings are
open to everybody and people I think when we knew
are hesitant to jump in, but these three people
just came and sat in on the board meeting,
and it happened again this year. And then from
that, one of those ran for the board and
is now in one of our new board members.
So the way to do it is push a little
bit step into the reception's, go to the board
meetings, go to the business meetings, volunteered to
do something, just something small, get to know
the people. And once you start knowing the people
, you really move ahead and the organization and find
that it's going to benefit to you. Okay.
Anything else do you want to say about any of
this stuff? Just that the whole field has evolved
, that we've seen it. Uh, time goes
rapidly. Um, but the people and the membership
, the networking is what goes on and on and
continues. And we're always meeting new people and forming
new friendships and new allegiances. And you can do
things jointly. The international division offers opportunities to do
things all over the world and you can meet people
right here. So I hope that people will give
it a try and come join.