Dr. Doug Crawford

I am an Adjunct Professor with the Centre for Distance Education currently involved in teaching various courses in the MDE program and occasionally working with the academic staff in the Centre for Distance Education preparing papers and presentations. My involvement with AU goes back to almost the beginning of the University's life when it was merely a 'pilot project', back in the early '70's. I joined the academic staff to help start AU from the University of Toronto where I was an academic both at the OISE and the Faculty of Education. Following a year helping to get AU started, I joined the newly minted Ministry of Advanced Education as Director of the Learning Systems Branch. From there I was able to lend a bureaucratic hand from time to time to aid and abet AU's fledgling start-up.

I retired from the Alberta Government in 1987 to rejoin AU to direct a national 'train the trainers' project. We called it the TIP (Training for Improved Performance) project. It was designed to apply the principles and practices of ISD to the preparation of learning material and delivery mechanisms to train trainers at a distance.

At the conclusion of the TIP project, my attention turned to consulting and writing about the future of education particularly focussing on high schools. I have been closely involved in planning, developing and implementing classroom free, competency based, innovative models for delivering high school programs. I am currently interested in planning, developing and evaluating distance education systems, and addressing environmental factors affecting educational futures.

My formal credentials include a BA (Psychology, UBC); MA (Psychology, UBC); Professional Advanced (Teaching) Certificate, Province of British Columbia (UBC); and, a PhD (Educational Theory, U of Toronto).

I can be reached by email at dougc@athabascau.ca