Jack Yensen

Jack Yensen has been involved in online education ever since 1970, when he first experimented with simulations on mainframes. When personal computers arrived he abandoned (almost) mainframes and time sharing and immersed himself in programming and databases. When networking started to happen, he got involved in very early email and telnet applications, and then realized in 1992 that he could enhance classroom courses and reach students globally using an FTP server to simulate a Web server, when the web first started. Now he has courses and servers and websites all over the place. Every year he visits many campuses and gives presentations and workshops on online or eLearning and shows faculty and staff how to extend courseware functionality (like WebCT and Blackboard), using Java, Flash, HotMedia, streaming audio and video and collaboration or groupware like Teamwave, Webex, & Placeware. He is also a management consultant in healthcare, assisting corporate clients to design and implement virtual universities. Jack has been involved in health and nursing informatics since 1975.

eLearning

I am totally fascinated with trying to understand the complex processes of learning in order that I can apply any insights to the equally complex field of teaching. Since the early 90s I have been tracking and experimenting with eLearning and instructional objects, employing multimedia and interactivity as essential aspects of online learning and understand that this whole spectrum of web enhanced and web delivered learning will completely change the way we think about learning and teaching. We are looking forward to generating a hotbed of discussion and articles and instructional objects to support the evolving discipline of nursing informatics.