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FACULTY DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE

August 20 - September 1, 1995

FDW Logo designed
by Rann Rudisill of OIIT.

Workshop Description:

Under the "Connecting Teachers and Technology" Initiative sponsored by the Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia, a workshop for University System teachers was held at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education in Athens.

Sixty-one professors from the 34 System schools were invited to attend--one from each junior college in the system, two from each senior college, and three from each university. Because Georgia Perimeter College (formerly DeKalb College) is so large and is spread over such a large area, two professors from there were invited. There was also one participant from the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography.

I was fortunate to be chosen as a member of the first class for this Faculty Development Workshop (now known as the Faculty Development Institute).

Personnel from OIIT (the University System's Office of Instructional and Information Technology) were workshop leaders, coordinated by Dr. Kris Biesinger, currently Assistant Vice Chancellor for Information Technology for the University System of Georgia.

For two weeks we lived together at the Georgia Center. "Reveille" was at 6:30 a.m. with breakfast at 7 a.m. and workshops and lab time until 10:30 or 11 at night (whatever time we "wore out"). After the first week, we began calling our workshop "FDW Camp." What a wonderful time we had getting to know people from the other institutions in our system and participating in the latest in technology!

The experiences we had in learning about GSAMS (the Georgia State Academic and Medical System), the Internet, etc., were particularly exhilarating to those of us who already were "computer nerds." By the end of the two weeks nearly everyone present had become a computer nerd!