Perhaps what makes Bonk unique, however, is that he works in four worlds, all with a focus on online teaching and learning: higher education, K-12, corporate training, and the daily grind of running his own business, called CourseShare. At any given time, Bonk typically has between 20 to 30 employees - primarily graduate students who are programmers, researchers and writers - working on a myriad of projects. Additionally, Bonk is a speaker in high demand. Over this past year, Bonk gave presentations at numerous institutions and conferences across the U.S. and internationally in Australia, New Zealand, Korea, and Denmark.

Educational Pathways recently interviewed Bonk to get a sense of what drives his passion and to obtain a briefing on some of his most recent projects in his four worlds.

"Teaching techniques is an area that I talk about quite a bit," says Bonk. "Many people are insecure about going to the Web. You have administrators trying to convince faculty members to teach online; and at the same time, you have an influx of technology in higher education for teaching online; and courses need to be taught. I not only talk about technology use, but I also offer techniques for how to teach online. Since I’ve taught online myself, they want to know about my successes and failures. People like the techniques." (See Ten Online Learning Pedagogical Ideas, page 5.)
Among his many writings concerning higher education online learning, a paper based on a survey of postsecondary instructors, titled "Online Teaching in an Online World," covered "the common obstacles, supports, and experiences as well as the tools used among early adopters of the Web as a teaching resource."

In relation to Bonk’s K-12 activities, there’s the Teacher Institute for Curriculum Knowledge About Integration of Technology (TICKIT), which he has co-directed through the Indiana University School of Education for five years. According to the TICKIT Web site, "the Institute assists (K-12) teachers in creating high-quality uses of technology in their classrooms. . . Schools benefit from the increased use of computers in the classroom and gain a team of teacher mentors who work with other colleagues on technology infusion. . ."

"We take these teachers and we push them to the edge of their envelopes in getting them to think about how to integrate technology, and why they should integrate technology, using a learner-centered, inquiry, problem-based approach," says Bonk. More than 125 teachers from rural Indiana schools have completed the two-semester program, making a significant impact at their schools. Additionally, a number of important follow-up studies have recently come out of the Institute.

Bonk’s forays into the world of corporate training includes, among a number of varied projects over the years, analyzing the Mall of America Web site and writing a well-received white paper titled "Online Training in an Online World." The paper is based on a Web-based survey conducted during April and May of 2001 in which 201 respondents, comprised of corporate trainers, instructional designers, training managers, and chief learning officers, answered a series of questions about their Web-based training practices.

Most recently, Bonk had an article published in the newly published Chief Learning Officer magazine, titled "Collaborative Tools for e-Learning" in which he presents an overview of Web-based synchronous and asynchronous collaboration platforms and tools being used in corporate training environments.

Additionally, Bonk is a Senior Research Fellow with the Army Research Institute. In this capacity, Bonk, in collaboration with Director of the Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative Robert Wisher, has published several technical reports related to military distance learning, covering such topics as collaborative tools; focus groups; communication patterns; and a report, currently in press, that analyzes 6,600 online chats. Initial findings show that 30 percent of all online chats in a typical training program are social in nature.

Bonk’s private business, CourseShare, provides "online learning research and evaluation as well as training in Web-based course development and instruction." Moreover, inside CourseShare are at least eight free collaborative tools, each with a unique Web site. In particular, Bonk is excited about a new version of a Web-based tool that is 2.5 years in the making, SurveyShare, which is a Web site for designing and conducting online surveys. Users can write a survey, send invitations to potential respondents, and view responses in real-time. "You can use it as a post assessment to a workshop, for a customer satisfaction survey, to survey students’ attitudes about a particular topic, and much more," says Bonk. "We made it generic enough so anyone can use it. We want it to be a collaborative tool and have researchers share results with each other, and share survey templates with each other."

Two other collaborative tools are in the making. One is called InstructorShare, which is a tool that can help faculty share syllabi, Web links, multi-media files, etc., and have discussions and chats. The other tool, which does not have an official name yet, is a freelance instructor exchange program where institutions can post job opportunities and online instructors can post their services.

Chief Learning Officer Magazine