Staff

The Orange Grove is a project of the Florida Distance Learning Consortium (FDLC). The Consortium is a member service organization that supports advanced and proven technologies to enhance and deliver instruction. FDLC provides opportunities for collaboration, resource sharing, and economies of scale in procurement of instructional technology resources. The work of the Consortium is driven by the appointed representatives of its member institutions. The Consortium also serves in an advisory role to the State Board of Education and the Florida Board of Governors.

For more information, please visit our website at www.fldlc.org or view Florida's Catalog of Online Courses at www.distancelearn.org.

See who is part of The Orange Grove Team

Ms. Susie Henderson is The Orange Grove Project Director and Associate Executive Director of the Florida Distance Learning Consortium (FDLC). As FDLC Associate Executive Director, Ms. Henderson works with the 39 post secondary institutions in Florida to leverage resources, facilitate statewide communication and cooperation, and develop beneficial statewide initiatives. Ms. Henderson also serves as the Director of The Orange Grove, a standards based K20 learning object repository for the state of Florida. In this role, she works to define and operationalize the project through the development of policies and the effective use of state and local resources. Ms. Henderson also conducts workshops on a range of topics.

She serves on and chairs regional and national committees in the U.S., such as the Advisory Board of the Academic Advanced Distributed Learning (ADL) Co-Lab in Madison, Wisconsin; the OCLC e-learning committee; the Southern Regional Education Board´s (SREB) Distance Learning Policy Laboratory and SCORE Project (Shareable Content Object Registry for Education); and also MiCTA´s 2005 National e-Learning RFP committee. Ms. Henderson received a three year FIPSE grant for 2006-09 for the development of a Blueprint to establish statewide or institutional repositories. In cooperation with the SREB, Ms. Henderson has written numerous papers related to learning objects, technical standards and metadata. She has also served as a technology and e-learning consultant with other states and the government of Malaysia. Within Florida, she directed the statewide 2000 Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) Distance Learning Substantive Change visit and worked as a consultant to develop the Florida Department of Education´s Alternative Certification Program. Ms. Henderson holds a Master of Science from Florida State University in Instructional Systems and a B.A. in Psychology and Asian Studies from St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minnesota.

Ms. Cathy Alfano is the Project Manger for The Orange Grove and is playing a major role its implementation. Ms. Alfano has over ten years experience as an instructional designer and project manager, with a concentration in the area of distance learning for the past seven years. She has worked in state agencies and higher education in Florida and managed Florida State University military projects for the U.S. Navy. Her experience includes managing design and delivery of a statewide certification program, designing electronic performance support tools, redesigning classroom courses for online delivery, and managing and collaborating on research projects related to distance education and training. Cathy holds a M.S. in Instructional Systems from Florida State University and a B. A. in English from the University of Florida.

Ms. Elizabeth Johnson works as the project coordinator for a grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE). In this capacity she is studying the Orange Grove repository, and working with the FDLC, focus groups, and other stakeholders to gather information. The information will be used to develop a blueprint detailing the policies and procedures needed to develop a statewide online content repository. She is responsible for facilitating design and creation of the blueprint and coordinating its testing through a pilot implementation in another state.

Ms. Johnson previously worked for the Office of International Programs at Florida State University—first at the FSU London Study Centre in England, where she managed the Library/computer lab, and then in the Tallahassee office where she served as Assistant Director of Information and Publications. She holds a M.S. in Information Studies and a B.A. in English from Florida State University.