resources | lebold & hopper, 1992 [research interview]
William LeBold & Mary Hopper, Passages from Personal Interview, July 2, 1992
Passage 1
LeBold: The biggest problem I see is that it could become too technology oriented, so that the personal dimension gets lost which I think is central to doing any really good counseling. I think
the person to person contact is central, and that's the important thing.
Passage 2
Hopper: What would have been done differently if you got a
chance to do it all over again?
LeBold: Well, with the kind of responsibility I have, the way I think I work best is to get things started, and then turn those things over to other people. For example, when there was a need at in Engineering at Purdue for a women's program, A counselor-tutorial program for high-risk students, or an under-represented minorities program, we identified that the programs were needed, and I played a role in identifying the problem, suggesting the research and information that were relevant, suggested plans of action, and possible methods of evaluation. In other works more than just saying, "Here's a need." But I didn't want to get involved in the nitty gritty of administration. I don't think that is necessarily my long suit. So my idea for this engineering career system, is to get it going. There's just tremendous amounts of information out there, and the problem is how to tap those things and integrate the information so that it helps students. If this was the only thing I had to work on, it would
be different. But ESCAPE is only a small part of my overall responsibility.
Passage 3
Hopper: What do you think were the major needs in developing the Engineering Career System?
LeBold: We recognized that a need to develop an Engineering Career System for Engineering students and graduates. We also recognized the potential of interactive computerized systems to provide the types of career information needed. We also recognized that existing computerized career information systems did not provide the detailed information that engineers need. We also felt that the linking and indexing systems available in HyperCard and the User-Friendly nature of the Macintosh provided a fertile area for experimentation. In addition, there is a real need for what I call integrators, and there aren't very many people who do that job. You've got a lot of people who are specialists in developing detailed technologies and are doing their own thing, but there are not too many integrating people, with fingers in lots of pies, and who are able to tap into all kinds of things. But that's the solution. We need to be able to have more integrators. Whether that will be the future instructional
designer, or whatever they are going to be called. But, I also think it's going to have to include people with significant knowledge in subject matter areas, as well as people who are knowledgeable about the emerging computer information technologies. And they're going to have to have resources available to them. Resources include personnel, equipment, space and adequate funding. We managed to do quite a bit with rather minimal resources, but it required a longer period of time, as well as personal sacrifice and commitment. In retrospect the time was a plus because newer, more accessible and less expensive hardware, software, and networking became available and made our aspirations more feasible and less frustrating.
Passage 4
Hopper: Do you think our effort has been successful?
LeBold: Yes, it is a success. The primary success is that we
showed that it was feasible to do it; it does meet a very important
need, and it could be expanded.
Hopper: Now of these, which seems to be the most important?
LeBold: Personalized Engineering career guidance is needed. There is no
question that there is a need out there. We documented it. It's a pervasive need that goes back a long time. I'd say the need is there, and it's not really being met. I think the plus is, we are now have information resources, and the techniques to be able to retrieve that information. I would like to have more resources to develop more materials. I would like have the resources to tap the tremendous information resources that are available. I also think a lot of us realize that we need to integrate academic counseling with the academic program. So building it into courses that all of the students are taking will be important. But we are never going to get enough Mac labs to handle 1000 or 1500 students; the Sun workstations are one of the best practical ways to do it. And I do know that even the personal computers are essentially going to become workstations anyway. I would like to have the resources to move the system to the PC workstation. The thing that is still very attractive about the
Macintosh environment is that it is so friendly, and it's so easy, and there's so many tools available for hypermedia development. The other thing is, we could open it up to the rest of country, and the rest of world.
© Mary E. Hopper [MEHopper] |
MEHopper@TheWorld.com
[posted 01/01/01 | revised 02/02/02]