Welcome. Um Please introduce yourself and tell us a
little bit about where you are now. What where
have you been? Okay, thank you so much
. Well I'm Tom Reeves and I'm a Professor Emeritus
of Learning Design and Technology at the University of Georgia
, which is in Athens Georgia, home of
R. E. M. And the B52s
, a lot of other great music groups. But
even though I'm retired, I'm still very active and
I keep office on campus and still work on special
projects for the dean and meet with doctoral students.
Just last Thursday I taught the doctoral seminar and so
it's been great. I've enjoyed being quote unquote retired
but staying very, very active, doing a lot
of consulting primarily in the area of public health work
with the World Health Organization. I was in Geneva
for a week last month in Turkey for the W
. H. O. For a couple of weeks
in May. And so you know, enjoy that
kind of work. Also work in medical education as
well. Excellent. Thanks. And what was your
primary focus of your work currently? And in the
past? Yes, I guess I would say evaluation
as my first love. I got my degree at
Syracuse University in the division of instructional design, development
and evaluation and I was in the evaluation track.
They're finished back in 1979, a long long time
ago and my major professor Ed Kelly, was a
really great evaluation guru. Don L lee was on
my committee and Phil dodi and john Keller, I
had five courses with Dick Clark when he was there
. Richard Clarke was now at USC so it was
a great time to be at Syracuse, a great
education. So evaluation was where I do a lot
of work. I published a book on evaluation in
2003 with John Hedberg from Australia and we're currently doing
a second edition of that. But then research methods
are also something very interested in. Just had a
book come out March called conducting educational design research,
which I wrote with Susan Mckinney from the Netherlands.
She's with the Open University of the Netherlands and University
of Twente and I've known her for many, many
years. And so we're interested in that. And
then I guess the third area would be online learning
and have a book out that came out in two
years ago that actually won an award here at act
for the Book of the Year, from the ID
and and it's about authentic online learning. And I
wrote that also with a couple of Australians. I
do a lot of work in Australia, spend as
long as five months at a time down there.
Last year, I was down there for a month
working with the Open universities in Australia. Just it's
kind of a second home for us. We like
yes, you say us yes. Us being my
wife, uh dr Tricia Reeves and she's a professor
of social work at the University of Georgia. She
also works in public health, though. She runs
a dual degree program where students in three years get
both masters of public health and a master's of social
work. And our son has a master's degree in
public health from the University of Georgia and he works
in a clinic in Athens. And so that's worked
out great. So public health kind of runs in
the family. That I understand that you've done some
work with, your wife published and work with.
Absolutely. We've published a number of articles related to
online learning, both in public health, social work
, continuing medical education, that kind of area.
And Tricia did her PhD at Georgia I guess back
in 1998. And she did her research on how
people with HIV AIDS, used the internet too,
empower themselves with new knowledge to manage their disease.
Uh huh. I was really pioneering work and she
continues to work with that community as well. That's
fine. Um Can you also describe your career path
? Mentioned that you started out at Syracuse and everything
? Where did you go? Yes. Well before
I went to college I was in the army for
a couple of years. Ah oddly enough I got
trained as an audiovisual specialist in the army. And
so I went to a V. School in the
U. S. Army. I was very young
and uh I remember one of the exit exams was
they blindfolded us and we had to thread a 16
millimeter projector within eight seconds or something like that.
You know, that was actually part of the performance
test to graduate from a B school in the army
. So I got interested a bit uh when I
was in the military uh and then became an elementary
school teacher after that talk school for a couple of
years. But then uh took a course with dr
skip Atkinson at Georgia State University, was teaching school
in Atlanta and that was of course in games and
simulation design 1973. And he had just graduated from
Syracuse University. Uh he said you ought to go
to graduate school and I think you should go to
Syracuse. So I ended up going to Syracuse and
uh I got out of the army in 1971 in
between 1971 and 1979, I got BS two Masters
and a PhD and also worked full time through much
of that period. So I was a man on
a mission. Finally they said you have enough education
, you have to get a job. So I
went to peru for a year as a Fulbright lecturer
. Donnie lee really encouraged me to do that because
he had been a lot of work in South Yeah
. And then I worked at the mountain University of
south Carolina for a year. Then I worked in
Heidelberg Germany for a year for the University of Maryland
. And then I came to Georgia in 1982.
I've been there ever since. So 30 years at
the University of Georgia, Beautiful Athens which I saw
just Last week. Money magazine had picked as one
of the top 25 places in America to retire.
So yes, we love Athens. We have a
couple of dogs that we are like our four legged
kids and spoil them rotten. The number of people
tell my wife that they want to come back if
there's reincarnation, they want to come back as our
dogs because they get so spoiled. But we we
love Athens and we do a lot of travel this
year. We spent a week in Barcelona Spain,
we spent time in the Netherlands and Austria and the
Czech Republic and Germany. And we're getting ready to
head to the beach for the holidays. We take
the dogs to a southern beach every during the december
holidays, that's right for the world, seek care
. How would you describe your research interests and aspirations
from when you first started your career and how they
change over? That's a great question Miriam. I
guess, You know, having had five classes with
Richard Clarke is a brilliant person in our field.
I think he's also part of this history makers series
. Uh huh. One of the brightest guys ever
met in my life. Uh he really taught us
to be skeptical about technology that when people come along
and they say this technology is going to change the
world, that you should really be suspicious about that
and really question, what are the educational methods that
are going to be used and how is that technology
can enable that? I saw, you know,
the new ipad Mini is about to come out this
friday. And I've already seen, I actually googled
this uh I've already seen a story in one of
the magazines and newspapers. It said ipad mini revolutionized
education, literally that's the head like, okay,
how many times have I heard this? You know
, uh that was laser disc, we're gonna do
that cd rom's, we're going to do that,
the internet was gonna do that learning etcetera, etcetera
. So I guess I a lot of my career
has been focused on, you know, figuring out
what is the best blend of objectives, content,
instructional design, very, very important, the role
of the teacher, the role of the student,
the role of the technology and the role of assessment
, all of those things have to be carefully aligned
. So I think a lot of my work through
the years has had that theme of looking for that
alignment. What's the most appropriate alignment? How do
you evaluate that? How do you conduct research on
that topic? And I think design based research or
educational design research is really powerful in that kind of
way, so really tying together those integral parts of
any learning environment uh and the technology is important,
but it's certainly not the solution. So I think
I'm somewhat of a technology skeptic and that's a theme
that's rolling through. I'm also an enthusiast, Don't
get me wrong about that. But also, you
know, I never have those road rose colored glasses
on that people when they say, oh, I've
had many, it's gonna change everything, We'll just
wait a minute. Let's see. You know,
uh education is pretty resilient to change. That's why
again, I don't want to repeat myself too much
. But design based research is really a powerful approach
because it the first and foremost begins with real world
problems. And you do your research hand in hand
with practitioners. So if their teachers, you're working
very closely with teachers, they're they're co investigators.
Uh and then you bring in the best possible theory
and design principles and you create a prototype solution to
a problem and then you test that through iterative cycles
of refinement and then the major outcomes of design based
research or I like to call educational design research are
a robust innovation and design principles, new theoretical knowledge
that can be applied to future innovations and also in
the process. A lot of professional development is accomplished
working hand in hand with practitioners. So I think
it's a win win win proposition. Yeah. Innovation
design principles and professional development all tied into one beautiful
package. So people that are have your innovation then
you have the researchers are benefiting is what you're saying
as well as the practitioners are benefiting. Yes,
absolutely. So yeah, in fact one of my
students, oh who was an intern here at the
conference a couple years ago, she did her dissertation
using design based research methods. Her focus was on
enhancing group work in the context of online learning.
And we designed innovative online course, ran it for
a number of semesters and eight semester systematically improved it
because group work built around authentic activity students. It
was an evaluation course and students actually had to playing
conducted report an evaluation for real client group work was
integral to the design of the course. And through
her research, figured out better and better ways of
supporting group work and nurturing students so they would be
effective, collaborate. That's next. Right. Well
, that's fascinating. Would you share some of the
major trends, important trends that you feel like you've
seen in the field during your career? Uh Miriam
, that's another great question. Uh I think uh
because I've been in this field for so long,
I've been a lot of trends, but what I'm
excited about today, I really think there are two
major goals that educational technologies serve, one being opening
up access to learning opportunities to people who wouldn't otherwise
have, and I think that our field has contributed
a lot to that. And so more and more
people are getting opportunities for higher education through online learning
. Uh In K 12 education students in remote areas
are getting access two courses that they wouldn't otherwise have
. Michael Barber was one of my PhD students,
I think he was also an intern at A C
. T. By the way, I was an
intern in 1978 so I may be the oldest surviving
intern still coming to A C. T. But
anyway, the uh I would give us a grade
of maybe be in terms of opening up access.
Um The other major goal of educational technology I think
is improving the quality of teaching and learning. And
there unfortunately, I think we're still not making the
great very well and I wouldn't give us an F
but I would say maybe a D minus. Uh
we we have, you know, unfortunately, so
many people and not necessarily in our field, but
so many people that are going into online learning today
continue to try to force traditional educational methods into the
online format of the blended format, rather than really
taking advantage of the afford ince's of the technology to
do things in a more effective way. So the
instructional design is not always uh has not always been
employed sufficiently to really redesign the learning environment, such
a way that to be more effective. So I
think we need to do a lot more work in
that area. So we're spreading opportunity, for example
, moocs the hot topic of the day and these
massive online open courses. I've actually been a guest
lecturer and two of those so far, both of
them came out of Canada. I'm going to be
also a guest lecturer in one that will start in
january. That's open offered by the Open University of
the UK. It's a 10 week book on learning
design and they've already got almost 1000 people signed up
for that and the people who actually enroll in it
for credit will actually design a learning, a reusable
learning resource in that 10 week course. And uh
I'm the only, as far as I know,
I think I'm the only american uh involved in this
particular book, but I think moocs are in an
important development. The jury's still out on whether it's
just a passing fad or something that will transform education
. Certainly, you know, people like our universities
like stanford and M. I. T. And
Harvard are putting millions of dollars into this uh enterprise
and we have things like X and kyocera and other
things involved. So be interesting to see how all
that goes. But that affords people opportunities to learn
that they wouldn't otherwise have and at the right price
so far it's free but also very interested in work
in developing countries. And uh as I mentioned earlier
I got to spend a year in peru as a
Fulbright, I've done work in a number of other
countries and really think that online learning and educational technology
, the things that act is really on the cutting
edge with that those will provide unparalleled learning opportunities for
people in those countries excited about that. Well,
since you bring up moves, what do you think
of what some call a theory of connective is um
in general? And what do you think about that
? Yes. Well the two courses that I was
a guest lecturer and they came out of uh Canada
were uh developed by George stevens and some other folks
, uh Stephen Downes and you know, the Gospel
according to connective is um I think it's a really
wonderful philosophy and development. I don't think it's taken
off as much as it should. I hope it
will take off even more. I believe in sharing
. I remember early on when um hyper card was
big news, you know, I got involved in
developing a lot of hyper card stacks and uh we
just give those away and I think and and then
when uh the internet got developed and we started,
you know, putting things online, the articles that
that I've written that have had the most impact,
have been articles that are freely available that anybody can
access, not in some refereed journal that you have
to have special permission to get to. Ah so
I really think that, you know, connective is
um and providing opportunities where people sort of develop their
own learning world uh is really really the future.
So I'm excited about that. Uh I just had
lunch before this interview with steve Harmon, who's the
president, incoming president elect of and we were talking
about these types of things as well, and I
know that he's very interested in that and I suspect
that in next year's conference in Anaheim that we a
lot of talk about books and collectivism and those types
of topics that I'm glad to hear you say that
, okay, who are some of the people that
you have had the most on your career and your
your direction? You mentioned Donny Lee. Yeah.
Yeah, well I I'd have to go all the
way back to sister uh Rita Alberta, my eighth
grade uh teacher, I was in a little tiny
school. There were only 12 kids in my eighth
grade class. But she was a really good teacher
. She told us that it was important to be
educated to develop what she called a good crap detector
. Now this was unusual for a nun to say
crap detector, but that's the word she is.
And she said 90% of anything in the world is
crap And your goal in life is to be in
the 10%. That is not crap. And I
think she had a big influence on me because I
became an evaluator. So that certainly was an influence
. Uh, then skip Atkinson and my undergraduate,
uh, in my uh, first Master's degree was
very influential. Donnie lee, what a role model
he was for so many decades. So many students
. Just a fantastic. And then my advisor was
kelly and Phil dodi and john Keller and folks like
that, I mentioned, Richard Clarke a big influence
on me. I just wrote a review of his
new book this year, came out a second edition
of book about media and Learning Learning with Media.
And I wrote that for Educational Technology magazine coming out
early next year. So I fully expect to hear
from Dick about my review. I was a very
positive review, but he'll definitely have some words for
me about it, I'm sure. But uh he
influenced me quite a lot. I was in school
with Bernie Dodge and john Hedberg and carol carrier.
And those peers also influenced me a lot, I
think of my contemporaries, probably David johnson had a
lot of influence on me, brilliant guy. And
he and I got to publish together starting in the
mid 90's and I'm actually co editing a special issue
of computers and education journal. Lot of uh devoted
to his work. And that will be coming out
early next year. And my wife and I have
written a chapter in a new book that my expect
. Er and Barbara Laki and others are editing uh
Tributes to Dave's work. And we have a chapter
and they're about medical simulations and learning heavily influenced by
David's thinking. So certainly David and then I I'd
be remiss if I didn't mention Kent Gustafson, he
was my first department chair at Georgia. Uh He
was president of A. C. T. Uh
phenomenal guy. Wonderful leader, wonderful department chair built
our doctoral program from the ground up. Uh I
have to mention him as a very influential person.
There are a few other programs in our field that
have been very influential and a great relationships with Georgia
particularly mentioned Virginia Tech. Uh The folks at Virginia
Tech have been wonderful. And over the years our
faculty and students have gone up to Blacksburg and their
faculty and students have come down to Athens and we
had this ongoing exchange. In fact, we're having
another one in february 2013. Our students and faculty
will be going up to Blacksburg and there'll be a
two day conference and just a phenomenal. But some
of the folks there like john Burton and Michael moore
and, and uh, Barbara Loki. And so
I'm suddenly having a senior moment not remembering all the
names Cathy and, and everyone, it's a fantastic
program. And that relationship has been very important to
our program and hope that that will continue for a
long time to come and thanks. Um, what
do you consider your greatest accomplishment of your career and
why? Well, I guess, uh, my
son would be Jamie would be a great accomplishment,
and then my marriage with my wife, Tricia would
be a great accomplishment. So those sort of way
up there. But as far as the field of
educational technology is concerned, I think maybe I really
, you know, this series is called History makers
. I'm not sure I've made any history, although
I used to be a history teacher when I was
. But I think really emphasizing the importance of evaluation
is something I've pushed for a long time. I
taught an evaluation course at Syracuse for 20 years,
over 20 years. And so the students that uh
took that course, I think really developed some evaluation
skills and sometimes, you know, the E and
the anti model gets dropped off and forgotten about and
compromised. And so I've really tried to push that
uh to the forefront. Also, research research is
really important to me, but not research as so
much has been done in our field. This is
like the kind of research that Dick Karp has been
very critical of the media comparison research. It continues
to this day and it just drives him nuts and
it drives me nuts. But I feel like educational
design research is very, very important new direction actually
. Susan and I have an article coming out an
educational researcher early next year about this as well.
And in that artwork basically saying that I don't uh
educational design based research, educational design research has been
around now for about 25 years and some people are
willing to our I think wanting to say well it's
not paying off, the jury's still out on that
, I think it hasn't been applied enough and there's
still a lot of work to be done and I
think it is a positive direction. So that's the
argument. We try to make it article there.
So I guess emphasizing evaluation and research to contributions that
I'd like to think that had somewhat of an influence
on Yes, you have, you have. And
how would you then want to be remembered within the
profession? Old guys? How would I want to
remember, be remembered? That's interesting. Uh Well
, I want to be remembered by my PhD students
. I finished more than 30, I think 32
students in my 30 years at Georgia's about one a
year. And I'd like to think that their legacy
will be carried on for many years. And for
example, Steve Harmon is the president elect. He
was my ph uh doctoral student, Georgia, I
think he graduated in 1993. And I, so
I'd like to see that, that, you know
, being a teacher, it's an old analogy,
but the analogy where you throw a pebble into the
pond and the ripples go out. And I really
believe that I'd like to remember first and foremost as
a teacher, I love my students and still maintain
very close relationships with him. I'm going out to
another conference next week and in Denver colorado and uh
, I was planning to see my very first doctoral
student out there. But it turns out she's going
to be overseas. So I won't get to see
her, but I stay in touch with the vast
majority of my former doctoral students and a lot of
my master students as well. So being remembered as
a teacher would be the most important thing for me
. I think that's a notable legacy in itself that
you keep in contact. It continued to let you
know when they have successes and things. Yeah,
when I retired two years ago, two of my
colleagues, uh Jeanette Hill, and X and K
organized a two day conference on educational design research.
And we had a keynote speaker come from Australia.
Another one comes from the Netherlands. And we have
people come from all over, we have people coming
down from Canada from uh Asia, from europe,
from South Africa, all over the States. And
it was such a great event. And uh,
you know, in my students played a big role
in organizing that event. And so that was just
a wonderful experience. You know, I like to
think of the instructional, well what's called instructional technology
now, It's called Learning Design and Technology Program at
the University of Georgia being one that has Uh,
it was started in 1985. And I think I
think of it as one of the top five programs
in the country. And uh I hope it will
continue for a long time. We've got a great
faculty, great doctoral students, Great Master students.
And so I hope will be around for a long
time. My own research confirmed that in 2000 for
my dissertation research because it did practitioner survey, you
came up as one of the top three. Okay
, great. Thank you. Thank you. Thank
you so very much. Thank you mary. I
really appreciate it. Thank you very much.