Friends of Efolio Awards - 2012 elearning conference

At this point I’d like to ask Paul Wasko from MnSCU (Minnesota Schools, Colleges, and Universities) and the MN Learning Commons to come up to the podium and present this year’s Friends of eFolio Awards. Paul. Thanks Bob! For those of you that don’t know me, I’m often referred to as Paul Wasko aka The eFolio Guy for the state. This year I’m especially proud to ask Chris Scruton to join me on the stage You may not be aware of it. We’ve had some challenges of doing press releases in the past because, you know, if you have Public Affairs you have to go through 10 or 15 different levels to get approval. The University of Minnesota and MnSCU are now really joined at the hip as relates to eFolio Minnesota. We have now leveraged both of our institutions with the state to move forward with eFolio Minnesota. So, for me it is a great privilege to have you as a and Chris Scruton as my partner and ally at the University of Minnesota. If you are wondering what the Friends of eFolio Minnesota Award is, if you look at the keynote from yesterday, you will see a list of individuals who have been past recipients of the award. It is our intent as a project team, as we guide eFolio Minnesota, to recognize and reach out to those individuals that have gone beyond the call in terms of promoting the work that we do both here in the state as well as in other states. Of course, Stephen Mengel was in the higher learning commission (HLC) in Chicago Stephen took a chance on working with us, actually doing the first electronic portfolio for accreditation work. Chris, Billy Walstrom, who was at the U, and is now retired, took the opportunity to change the culture and work within the U to actually adopt all these tools created by the “other” system and actually bring it into the University of Minnesota. So, we have two awards this year. We try to do something a little different. As you know we do experiment with eFolio. Sometimes we are successful. Sometimes we are not quite as successful. This year we are actually going to represent or recognize some of the organizations and their efforts that have worked with eFolio. So, I’ll do one. I’ll ask them to stand as I read their name. Chris will do the other. Chris, do you mind grabbing the plaques? They are down there on the floor. Make sure we get the right ones. Here we go. The first one I have a very special tie with. I actually serve as part of the product team for this effort. This year’s Friends of eFolio Award goes to the GPS LifePlan Project Team for their willingness to incorporate and promote the use of eFolio within their GPS LifePlan Community. Randy, Michele, and all the folks at Century College, working with the GPS LifePlan, would you please stand. I’ll keep the award up here, but stand so we can recognize you. [applause] [applause] The second award goes to eFolio Call Center Agents for being the friendly face of eFolio Minnesota to thousands of eFolio users who call the eFolio call center. Any advisors who are here, please stand. [applause] Thanks for being flexible and allowing us to kind of pickup where we returned from our keynote. Robert, as you know, had to kinda of shift his schedule around. Thanks Bob for doing this. Thanks for a wonderful conference and sharing the ideas and suggestions you have. If I could indulge on you for one more second. Are Lynne and and Gary here? We have one more award to give out. [Lynne Groves arrives on stage. Paul looks perplexed.] I didn’t trip when I came to the podium! Many of you know that in order for there to be convergence, there not only requires people and methods and strategies, but it requires ideas and vision. And, what some of you are aware of but some of you may be surprised to learn, is that in the early part of this century, we were working with a number of people, groups, and organizations to bring together the concept and vision of a life-long electronic portfolio to serve the citizens of residents, workforce, and students in Minnesota Two people who were very instrumental in bringing that together so that the launch that could actually happen on August 1st, 2002 and if you quickly do the math, you know that means this is what year for us? The 10th year! Small businesses are amazed when they get to 10 years. We should be very proud. and in recognition of that we would like to honor both Paul Wasko and Gary Langer for their efforts in sheparding this to completion. And so [applause] it is my honor to give Paul an award in recognition of your innovative leadership and passionate commitment on this 10th Anniversary. And present on the stage with us, because of being very instrumental in responding to and being awarded the the RFP is Michael Norton, the President and CEO of Avenet and he wanted to be one of the first to congratulate you. But I wanted to be the first! [applause] Thank you. And also to Gary Langer in recognition of your innovative contribution and passionate commitment to eFolio Minnesota. Thank you very much. Thank you. [applause] Paul and Gary, I don’t want to take too much more time but it has really been a wild ride. We’ve been at this better than 10 years actually. Thank you so much. It has been an inspiration to work with you both and make this possible and provide this great tool for the students and residents of Minnesota So thank you both for all your work. [applause]