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Ed Warnshuis: Trailblazer for Educational TechnologyKnown by friends and colleagues as the godfather of educational technology, Edward Warnshuis was the founder and publisher of Technological Horizons in Education (T.H.E.) Journal, the first-ever publication to marry the then-disparate fields of technology and education. In the early 1970s, armed with nothing but a vision, Ed left behind a successful career in aerospace engineering and moved his family from the west coast to a small town outside of Boston to publish a magazine for products that hadn't even been invented yet. "We used to just call him crazy," says Wendy LaDuke, Ed's daughter and current publisher of T.H.E. Journal. "It was an enormous sacrifice for the family and Ed for quite a few years...but he would never give up. It was his determination that made [T.H.E. Journal] successful." Ed's vision was simple and somewhat obvious--why not introduce the technology being developed for the military into a school setting? Years of working on government contracts for companies like Hughes Aircraft and Northrop Grumman had given him a solid understanding of the endless possibilities technology could offer. Even though the computers of the time were huge mainframes in refrigerated rooms, Ed somehow knew that this technology had the potential to one day revolutionize education just as it had been doing for the military. He believed that some day it would act as the great equalizer, offering every student the resources of the select few. The hard part was convincing other people of this vision. "In the early days, when Ed talked about 'educational technology,' people would just scratch their heads," says M.F. Harmon, Eastern Region Sales Manager at T.H.E. Journal for the past 15 years. "Very few people saw the future like Ed." Ed knew that someone or some entity had to take a leadership role and communicate to both educators and the industry what could be done in education with technology. Just as important, someone needed to create a dialogue between these two groups, which at the time, existed in completely separate spheres. The concrete representation of Ed's vision was T.H.E. Journal, a magazine strictly focused on editorial coverage of educational applications of technology. At the same time, he felt this publication could be a platform for helping the technology industry understand the needs of education and the potential for product development as a result of those needs. Ed's wholehearted belief in the promise of educational technology won him many hard-fought battles with high-level representatives from industry giants like IBM, Wang, and Digital. He spent countless hours on calls evangelizing education as a market deserving of their resources. "Once at Sharp [Electronics Corporation], he waited and waited all day to see somebody--anybody--and he refused to leave the building until someone would listen to his presentation," recalls Harmon. "We still work with Sharp 30 years later." Ed also traveled to K-12 schools and colleges to talk with educators and administrators, convincing them that these products were worthy of their attention and consideration and would help them do their jobs better. Through these travels and discussions, Ed built a list of 40,000 subscribers by 1973. Through the ups and downs of the seventies and eighties--including a rather severe recession--Ed continued to build readership for the magazine. By the time he passed away in 1997, T.H.E. Journal had a circulation of 172,000 and a pass-along readership of an estimated 800,000. An early and passionate advocate for distance learning and the concept of instruction without walls, Ed served on the board of the United States Distance Learning Association. He also had an early vision of the necessity of a K-20 education focus, pushing for integration and interdependency among elementary, middle, and high schools and postsecondary education. "Ed saw the future of learning, knew the promise of technology, and set a course to define a new industry," says Mark Stevens, Senior Consultant, NEA Member Benefits, and long-time colleague of Ed's. "He forged into a territory never imagined in education publishing and evangelized what we all take for granted today; that digital content and online delivery is changing education. No one in the industry is more deserving to be recognized for the contributions he has made." Questions, ideas, or in need of more information? Please contact Stacey Pusey at 302-295-8349. |
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