Curt Bonk promotes distance education as an award winning teacher, energetic presenter, productive researcher, insightful tool developer, prolific writer, and committed mentor. Across these job functions, Curt is deeply committed to expanding access to education through nontraditional means such as Web-based instruction, computer conferencing, and video conferencing.

Since arriving at Indiana University (IU) in the fall of 1992, Curt has designed and taught Web-based courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels. In his online educational psychology course, for instance, he coordinated the development of electronic portfolio and peer feedback tools. At the same time, he designed several other courses with significant Web components, including online class discussions and debates.

In addition to the Web, he has used full motion video conferencing since 1995 to send his some of his courses to other Indiana University campuses and Indiana school districts. In fact, Curt once linked two video conferencing systems to bring researchers whose articles his students were reading into his class for a live discussion. He currently is teaching a course on alternative instructional strategies using video conferencing on Saturday mornings to three sites in Indiana as well as a blended learning course to rural teachers in Indiana using Oncourse.

Curt has at his core a spirit of innovation and experimentation. As a result, a visitor might find his class in the midst of a teleconference with a renowned author, a videoconference with students from other universities, a synchronous chat session with his former students, or a student Web site demonstration. I also know that every semester Curt is experimenting with online discussion tools and tasks. In fact, he has designed more than 100 techniques for active distance learning. For example, he usually embeds his classes with activities such as online debates, role-play, panel discussions, guest expert chats, case studies, field reflections, icebreakers, and even electronic séances.

In the area of distance education, Curt Bonk leads by example. Curt was among the first to offer summer workshop courses to teachers in schools districts in Indiana using video conferencing and Web technologies. And he was likely the first to post all his syllabi to the Web. He has used many courseware tools, including WebCT in 2001, Blackboard in 2002, and IU’s Oncourse system this year. Additionally, he has tested asynchronous tools such as SiteScape Forum for class discussions as well as synchronous presentation systems such as Placeware to bring in guest experts. He has also developed many creative tools and resources for Web instruction.

Curt often arranges to have his students discuss issues with peers who are taking similar courses in other universities and countries (e.g., Finland, Korea, and the UK). For five years (1996-2000), he coordinated the Conferencing on the Web (COW) project wherein his preservice teachers were corresponding, via case situations that they generated, about problems they observed in local schools. On many occasions, his students have collaborated with peers from the Universities of Oulu and Jvaskyla in Finland via video conferencing.

At the inservice level, since 1998 Curt has co-directed a project for rural Indiana teachers called TICKIT or the “Teacher Institute for Curriculum Knowledge about the Integration of Technology.” Each year, 25 teachers from five schools receive graduate credit from IU while learning to integrate technology into their curriculum. Training is blended and takes place online, at IU, and in each participating school. The TICKIT program focuses on relevant, collaborative, learner-centered, and interactive projects. This project has been highly successful. In fact, last July, Bonk helped the Department of Education and Training in New South Wales (Australia) extend the TICKIT model to their teachers during a weeklong e-academy for 80 of their K-12 teachers.

Supporting material

As evidence of his teaching expertise, Curt Bonk received the Burton Gorman teaching award from the School of Education at IU in 1999 as well as three straight “Teacher Excellence Recognition Awards” (TERA) from IU (1997-1999). More impressively, Curt was the first recipient of IU’s Wilbert Hites Mentoring Award in 2000, a university-wide award. In May, 2002, he was awarded the “CyberStar” award from the Indiana Information Technology Association. The CyberStar award recognizes the development of IT programs for Indiana higher education students.

Curt’s influence in distance education is now global. During the past year alone, Curt has given more than 100 inspiring workshops and presentations (including a dozen keynotes) on the use of distance technology in education in Indiana and internationally (e.g., Korea, Australia, New Zealand, and Denmark). His limitless energy and captivating distance learning ideas have attracted recent visitors to IU from Finland, Australia, South Africa, Singapore, Korea, and Canada.

Sample online courses and resources:
1996–2000: The Smartweb (undergraduate educational psychology course)

1997–99: The Bobweb (Alternative Instructional Strategies class is being updated at this time)

1998–99: The Caseweb (cases for educational psychology)

1999–2000: XanEdu (created first electronic coursepack in educational psychology)

1999–2001: INSITE (developed resources for undergraduate textbook for Houghton Mifflin)

1998–2003: TICKIT (for rural Indiana teacher technology integration)

1995–2003: Online Syllabi

2003: Personal Homepage

Distance education course accomplishments:
1. (1993-2003): Taught via Blended Learning—Face-to-face plus Web (various courses): FirstClass, SiteScape Forum, COW, Nicenet, WebCrossing, Placeware, e-education, WebCT, Virtual University, Blackboard, Oncourse.