I have been meaning to post the tribute below for nearly two years now. Better late than never.
Tribute to Larry Lipsitz (lifelong educator, trailblazer in
the field of educational technology, and founder of Educational Technology Magazine
(a part-time venture in 1961, and a full-time business from 1969 to the last
issue in March-April 2017). Larry passed away at the age of 79 on November 4,
2016.
A
portion of the article below appears in the last issue of Educational
Technology Magazine which was edited by my good friend and colleague, Dr. Tom
Reeves at The University of Georgia.
Bonk, C. J. (2017, March-April). Larry
Lipsitz helped change my life. In D. Hlynka, & T. C. Reeves (Eds.).
Tributes and remembrances for Larry Lipsitz. Educational Technology, 57(2),
7-8. Available: http://publicationshare.com/13
(entire tribute to Larry Lipsitz: http://publicationshare.com/14)
Original (slightly longer) Article:
Larry
Lipsitz Helped Change My Life, by Curt Bonk, Contributing Editor of Educational
Technology, and Professor, Indiana University, Instructional Systems Technology
(IST) Department
My first memories of Educational Technology magazine
take me back three decades to January 1986. What a month it was. On Friday January
3rd, I spent my final day as an accountant and CPA in Milwaukee while working
in the high tech industry. I then packed my stuff that weekend and moved to frigid
and snow-filled Madison, Wisconsin for graduate school which was -19 F at the
time. In a night class the following week titled “Ed Psych 890: Theory:
Computer-Based Instructional Systems” taught by UW Professor Richard Lehrer, I sat
next to two people, Tom Reynolds and Okhwa Lee, who would become my best
friends and top colleagues to this day. I also remember walking into the
Teacher Education building a couple of weeks later on Tuesday January 28, 1986 and
a TV mounted in the hallway, to which everyone around me was transfixed, was
replaying the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle.
Suffice
to say, that one of the most pivotal months in my life. Among the more consequential
events was when I went to the School of Education library to work on an early
assignment for EdP 890 and opened up the new January-February 1986 issue of
Educational Technology. In it was an article by the famed Roger Johnson and
David Johnson brothers from the University of Minnesota on “Computer-assisted
cooperative learning.” I was hooked. Another article from a previous issue in
1983 on “What computer-assisted instruction can offer toward the encouragement
of creative thinking” by Joan Gallini directly addressed one of the reasons I
was in graduate school; i.e., to foster human thinking and teamwork with
technology. Both articles later found their way into my master’s thesis. Articles
in other issues of this magazine by folks like Robert Tennyson, David Jonassen,
Priscilla Norton, Dean Spitzer, and countless others helped me to ramp up
quickly and learn from the leaders in the field. In fact, in the fall of 1986,
I wrote a letter to David Jonassen after reading his Educational Technology article
on “Soft technologies: A paradigm shift for educational technology” and I
received a personally written response from David a few weeks later in my
mailbox at home. Email accounts would be assigned a year later.
Suffice
to say, opening any issue of Educational Technology was like being a kid in a
candy store. Little did I realize that I would later get to meet the editor of
that magazine during a symposium at the AERA conference in April 2004 in San
Diego (ironically, the editor of this article, Tom Reeves, was the featured symposium
discussant). Even less expected was that Larry would actively solicit an
article from me. How did he know my name? Why was he asking for an article from
me? Larry sat in the front row of that research symposium in San Diego in an
attempt to learn as much as he could about the research of the presenters. If
it was any good, they would be sure to get his business card and request for an
article. Clearly, Larry Lipsitz had a keen pulse on the field of educational
technology.
In
more recent years, Larry would call or email me from time to time to discuss
trends in the field and up-and-coming people whom he might contact for an
article or a book review. He would also confer with me about upcoming special
issue themes and potential contributors. His interests in educational technology
were not only wide, they were deep; with mental notes of previous authors,
ideas, models, frameworks, concepts, theories, etc., spanning more than five
decades. He was perhaps the leading historian and documentarian of our field.
It is in the privilege getting to work with passionate, optimistic, and
transformative people like Larry Lipsitz that I am most thankful that I left
the field of accounting three decades ago. Larry pushed not only the field of
education ahead in positive ways, but markedly impacted the human condition in
general. Thanks so much Larry for helping change my life and the lives of so
many more! You cannot be replaced. We all deeply miss you.
Curt Bonk
Professor
Indiana University
Bloomington, Indiana
November 30, 2016
Labels: Curt Bonk, David Jonassen, educational technology, Educational Technology Magazine, Larry Lipsitz, Larry Lipsitz Tribute, Okhwa Lee, Richard Lehrer, Roger and David Johnson, Tom Reeves, Tom Reynolds |
