NVCC French Professor Laura Franklin
Northern Virginia Community College French Professor Laura Franklin describes her work as MERLOT’s World Languages editor for Voices for Openness, a professional development project from the Center for Open Educational Resources and Language Learning (COERLL):
My experience with OER began in the year 2000 when I became one of two co-editors of the Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching (MERLOT). As a community college educator, I was very conscious of the need for affordable learning materials for my students, so the free and open promise of the resources contained in MERLOT was music to my ears. My role involved working with language experts from many universities and colleges across the country and in Canada on peer review standards that would assure faculty members could use MERLOT materials with confidence. Content quality, potential effectiveness for use in teaching and learning, and ease of use are still the three criteria that MERLOT uses to evaluate the very best in learning materials. I also completed the composite peer reviews that appear on the MERLOT website. Over the years, this work has provided enough quality material to enhance my French courses at all levels of instruction. Indeed, I could design whole language courses around these online materials.
You can read the entire piece at http://sites.la.utexas.edu/voices/laura-franklin/.
Richard Sebastian
Richard Sebastian is the Director of Teaching and Learning Technologies for the Virginia Community College System. His role at the VCCS is to support the colleges' efforts to identify and implement effective technology use in the classroom and online. He also works on policy issues and statewide initiatives involving online learning and use of educational technology.
Richard serves on two VCCS Reengineering committees. He is a member of the Innovation and Technology Task Force and co-chairs the Textbook Costs and Digital Learning Resources workgroup. He leads the development of online resources for the VCCS's new Developmental Math curriculum for the Virginia Rethinks Health Science Education project, funded by a Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training Grant. He manages the annual Chancellor's Innovation Fund and provides guidance to faculty and staff about the VCCS Intellectual Property policy.
Richard lives in Richmond with his wife, son, menagerie of semi-feral cats, and heavily outnumbered dog, Dewey.