Purdue University - Home of the Boilermakers

Purdue University first opened its doors in 1874 with 39 students. It now enrols 40,000 students and is a beautiful Campus which covers 2,300 acres. It is a public University which is named after its founder John Purdue. The grounds and facilities are magnificent. It has its own 62,000 seat football stadium and a 14,000 seat basketball arena. One of its esteemed graduates is Neil Armstrong. www.purdue.edu

My contact at Purdue was Dr Jennifer Richardson, Assistant Professor in the Educational Technology Program. Jennifer is in charge of the teacher education program. I 'discovered' Jennifer when I was completing an e-learning subject for a Master of Education. Jennifer and her colleagues have completed extensive research in distance learning especially online learning and videoconferencing. Jennifer is currently researching peer feedback in the online environment, specifically the discussion room.

Jennifer provided me with a paper relating to videoconferencing which I know will provide some wonderful research information for us.

Jennifer arranged a lunch in my honour and invited Faculty from the English Department, the Continuing Education Department and the Educational Technology Dept. It was an excellent opportunity to share viewpoints and information and the lunch was delicious!

Mike, from the Educational Technology Department, then took us to the videoconferencing room which is used frequently by a small number of Faculty. The room has the Polycom system as ours does, but houses duplicate screens - you can see the three of us on one of the screens.

I then spent some time with Dennis and Tianhong from the Continuing Education Department. Dennis and Tianhong explained their roles. Dennis informed me of the large growth of online courses over the last few years. Tianhong, an Instructional Designer, helps Faculty members to place courses online.

Thank you to all who made my visit to Purdue so memorable. Especially thank you to Jennifer for your warm hospitality and making yourself available to me today. I have gained so much from my visit. I also now can recognise a squirrel when I see one!

written by

Sally Delaney on April 27, 2007 from West Lafayette, United States

from the travel blog: Sally DeLearning - American Style 2007

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Dear Sally
I'm amazed, you have just spent time next door to my bestest mate from the USA. He lives just next to Purdue university and his neice attends there. How cool is that.

You are obviously having a great time. Love the blog it's really very cool. I can't belive you have time to do this when you are travelling around. Keep us up to date, its just great.

We moved into our new house and am loving it.

Cheers

Leanne

written by Leanne on April 30, 2007

Leanne

What a coincidence!

written by

Sally Delaney on May 2, 2007

Sally

Where are you getting the time to do all this and then add to your blog. Well done all round

Cheers

karen

written by Karen Ritchie on May 6, 2007

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