A personal history: 28. Croatia and Chile

I’ve been a bad blogger. It’s over a month since my last post. Put it down to being fully retired and having other interests. For instance I have been having instruction in acrylic painting, which I have dabbled in for several years now but I need to improve my technique. I’m not very good but I do enjoy painting. So in some of my future blog posts you may also see some of my work, such as the painting above.

The first two years of Tony Bates Associates Ltd 

When I was thinking of starting my own consultancy company, I knew there were several other people, such as my former colleague at the Open University, Paul Bacsich, and Terry Anderson and Rory McGreal at Athabasca University, who were also doing a considerable amount of private consulting. If one is successful as a private consultant, it is often difficult to manage the work-load as an individual. I knew I had several potential consultancies in the pipeline for when I retired from UBC. My thinking at the time was that a group of consultants who specialised in online learning, distance education and educational technology might work better by sharing the work and widening the contact list of clients, so when registering my company, I called it Tony Bates Associates Ltd.

That was a mistake. If I wanted partners the company should not have been just in my name, but more generic, such as Learning Technology Consultants International. Also, some of the other consultants were not in a position to make commitments as they were still employed, whereas I was leaving my job. Thus, although a good deal of my future work as a consultant came from recommendations from other colleagues, the idea of a joint partnership of consultants died pretty quickly.

As I had a backlog of leave owing me from UBC, I was able to wind up my work at UBC by the middle of 2002. By 2003, I had contracts with:

• the Universidad de Guadalajara in Mexico,
• the Open University of Catalonia in Spain,
• the Croatian Academic and Research Network (CARNet) in Europe
• Universidad Tecnológica Metropolitana del Estado de Chile in Santiago (UTEM)
• the World Bank in Washington
• the OECD in Paris

I was also in high demand as a keynote speaker internationally. In 2003 I gave 15 keynote presentations and worked in ten different countries. I also had a major book with Gary Poole published by Wiley/Jossey-Bass that year: Effective Teaching with Technology in Higher Education: Foundations for Success

In 2004, I had consultancy contracts with:

• the World Bank (continuation from 2003)
• the Open University of Catalonia (continuation from 2003)
• UTEM in Chile (continuation from 2003)
• UNESCO, Paris
• Commonwealth of Learning
• Faculté St-Jean, University of Alberta
• Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, Calgary
• ETH, Zürich, Switzerland
• Volkswagen, Germany

I also gave 12 keynotes in nine different countries in 2004.

So, I had a flying start as a consultant. I will need another post on my work for the Open University of Catalonia, but I would like to discuss first my work in Croatia and Chile between 2003-2007.

Croatia

In 2003, I was contacted by Jasna Tingle, at the Croatian Academic and Research Network (CARNet) in Europe, asking if UBC could run a workshop on distance education, as there was little experience of e-learning at this time in Croatian universities. My colleague, Jeff Miller and I travelled to Zagreb to run the workshop. Also, Jeff Miller and Mark Bullen were asked to develop three certificates in e-learning for CARNet.

By 2004, CARNET was involved in the development of a number of e-learning projects, and I was invited to give a pre-conference workshop in Zagreb on the management of e-learning for senior administrators from several Croatian universities, as well as moderating a round table discussion on e-learning.

I was invited back in 2006 by Sandra Kucina at the University of Zagreb, to conduct workshops at the University of Zagreb, the University of Rijeka, and the University of Dubrovnik, for TEMPUS, a European Commission project.

As well as Mark Bullen and Jeff Miller, other staff from UBC were frequently involved in running workshops and helping with e-learning course development for CARNET for several more years. My colleagues at UBC and I played a major role in helping CARNet to establish quality e-learning in Croatian universities.

I really enjoyed working in Croatia. It is a beautiful country on the Adriatic Coast of the Mediterranean, and it was such a pleasure to work with such enthusiastic colleagues from Croatia. I went back with all my family in 2014 for a wonderful holiday on the Island of Brac, one of the last family holidays when all the family, including grandchildren, were present.

I used one of my paintings of a field of poppies on the island of Brac to head this article. I have been experimenting with different styles/compositions from different artists and this was inspired by Monet’s ‘The Poppy Field near Argenteuil’. 

UTEM Chile

At the end of 2003, I arranged a visit to UBC for Jorge Valenzuela and Antonio Lenz from the Universidad Tecnológica Metropolitana del Estado de Chile (UTEM) in Santiago. Jorge was a student of mine in the Post Graduate Certificate on Distributed Learning in 2000, and was now in 2003 the Director at UTEM Virtual, which was developing its own Master in Distance Education, with the aim of expanding the program across Chile and then to all Latin America. In 2004, UTEM Virtual was organizing a major conference and I was invited to be a keynote speaker and run a workshop at that conference.

This relationship with Jorge, his colleague Angelica Rojas, and UTEM resulted in several visits to Santiago between 2004 and 2007. I was involved in the design and delivery of their Master in Distance Education and was made an Honorary Director of the program. Others who taught on this program included Karen Belfer, Mark Bullen and Tannis Morgan from UBC, as well as Armando Villaroel, the executive director of the Inter-American Distance Education Consortium, CREAD. My wife and I also had the opportunity to visit Valparaiso, a beautiful city on the coast, and the home of Pablo Neruda, poet and diplomat. We also took a trip to the Colchagua Valley to taste their famous Chilean wines. 

In 2007 UTEM informed me that they would be offering me an honorary degree and we were negotiating a time for me to travel to Santiago for the ceremony. However, in late 2007 UTEM was reviewed by the National Accreditation Committee for the Quality Accreditation of the Ministry of Education. This was followed by a change of Rectors in 2008, and both UTEM and the state of Chile faced a difficult financial crisis in 2009, all of which resulted in my losing my connection with UTEM – and my honorary degree!

Up next

I’ll be covering my time at Southern Alberta Institute of Technology and with Faculté St.-Jean, the University of Alberta, in 2004