E1n1verse

Here’s a picture of me (and 6 others) who were recently honoured with the first teaching awards ever available for associate lecturers at the Open University in the United Kingdom. In the picture, I’m wearing a black suit and a salmon-coloured top on the far right of the picture. A version of this picture just appeared in an article the May-June edition of Open House, the OU-wide newspaper for staff of the Open University.

In previous years, the awards were only open to support staff and full-time central academic staff which is reflected in the headline for the article of “AL’s honoured at last.” Alas, while I am mentioned by name in the article, they don’t say very much about any of us. For example, about me. all they said is “Winnings [sic] ALs pictured are … TT280 and TT281 tutor Michelle Hoyle.” Yep, that’s it. We all had a few words in the article.

The cheque arrived in the most recent pay advice and I’m busy plotting what “personal” and “professional” self-development use I can put it to. I’ve started with a new pedometer and a new scale (waiting for the bank transfer to clear and that to be shipped still), and am trying to justify one of those new AirPort Express portable wireless stations with support for streaming to my stereo. I was also considering retroactively including the cost of my rather expensive Rosetta Stone language learning software for German; that’s definitely personal development.

Oh, the agony of deciding!

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From this week’s Bulletin, newsletter of the University of Sussex.

A part-time DPhil student in the Informatics department has won a national Associate Lecturer Teaching Award from the Open University (OU). Michelle Hoyle started teaching in the OU’s Faculty of Technology in May 2000 and delivers internet technology courses, primarily online. The award will be presented on 20 April at a ceremony in Milton Keynes and comes with £1,000 to be used for personal and/or professional development.

It’s also on the front page of the Informatics web site at the university. It’s my 15 minutes of fame this year. (-:

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I spent part of today working on a 100-word statement that the Open University wants to put on their web site closer to the time of the award presentation ceremony. I find it ironic that, after writing two pages about myself in order to apply for the award, I have to write another 100. I find it even more ironic that I also had to suggest a sentence to put on the certificate. For the certificate, Stephen and I eventually settled on “for outstanding dedication and excellence in on-line teaching.”

That still left the hundred words to be written. I reviewed my original award application material and put together the following:

Michelle focuses on Internet technology courses delivered primarily on-line. In TT280/TT281 (Design, Development, and Management/Client-Side Scripting), she provides extensive guidance through the development of supplementary course materials, in-depth FAQs, and a strong breadth of knowledge. She is a passionate communicator about technology, believing technology is sometimes only as difficult as people make it. Therefore, demonstrating a belief that students can achieve is a key to student success. In computing and technology, where women are scarce, she is a visible role model that women can succeed well in these traditionally male-dominated fields even if they have tangible weaknesses to overcome.

Once I had that out of the way, I decided I might as well go whole hog and e-mail the The Bulletin as suggested by Thufir. Not being familiar with the publication and what information they might require, I probably went overboard.

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