News Article

CNA instructor sheds new light on program delivery


3/25/2011 3:41:13 PM


Roxane Rowsell’s Office Administration textbook Double N Adventures is being used in college programs across the country.

Gander - Roxane Rowsell isn’t kidding when she says she ‘wrote the book’ on office administration. With the help of textbook publisher Nelson Education, her comprehensive guide to office administration is being used across the country.

Double N Adventures puts students in the role of an administrative assistant for a fictitious adventure tourism company, named after Rowsell’s twin sons Nick and Noah. Completing the simulation gives students a taste of the skills they would need to run a typical office, from writing business letters to submitting payroll information.

Rowsell teaches Office Administration through College of the North Atlantic’s Distributed Learning Service. She took on the challenge because she couldn’t find a Canadian textbook that taught the skills needed in a modern office.

“We were using a very old textbook - it was last reprinted in 1992,” she says. “It included instructions for the students to use carbon copies and onion skins and make sure the ashtrays were clean!”

Frustrated with the outdated book, Rowsell began mapping out her ideal textbook in her head.

“One day I just got ticked off and I sat down and wrote up this great big proposal and emailed it.”

That email went to Nelson Education Ltd, a Canadian-owned publisher of educational resources for students and instructors in K-12 and post-secondary education, and within a week, Roxane’s phone rang. Nelson’s Editor in Chief, Ann Williams was eager to publish her book.

“All through its development, we received extremely positive responses to Roxane’s approach and many reviewers were impatient to try it out in their classrooms,” says Williams. “With its launch this year, Nelson is very excited to see how this excellent resource will improve the learning experience for office administration students and instructors across the country.”

A few weeks after that initial phone call, with a signed contract and the high expectations of her potential publisher looming, Rowsell suddenly realized she had a huge task ahead of her.

“Then it was like, ‘Oh my! What have I done?’” she says. “It was insanely time consuming; so meticulous and detailed. It goes through a team of editors, a team of proofreaders, designers, copyright people – the list of people who worked on this book just blew me away. They sent the proposal across Canada to a select group of instructors and I had overwhelmingly positive feedback – it was very exciting for me!”

Rowsell will be presenting Double N Adventures at the Nelson Inspired Teaching Symposium in Toronto in April, and then she plans to write another textbook.

“I probably do things differently than the rest of the world; I kind of write it all in my head first, then I have to find time to put it on paper,” she says. “So the next one is ready to go, it just hasn’t gotten out of my head yet.”

-30-


Media Contact:

Gina MacArthur
Public Information Officer
College of the North Atlantic
Ph: 709-643-7928
gina.macarthur@cna.nl.ca