Introductions

[Cathy Swift]

Please introduce yourself here and tell us a little about YOU.  We'd also like to know about your interests in Virtual Environments as well as your experience.  Thus, if people are not able to make the conference calls, they can still get to know the others on the Taskforce.

 

Here is the final list that is now in MERLOT under Academic Support Services for Virtual Environments:

 

Assessment
Augmented Reality
Blended or Mixed Reality
Design
Disciplinary Content
Gaming Environments
Learner Engagement Strategies
Professional Development
Research
Virtual Environment Tool Sets

[Yun-Jo An]

Hello all! I am Yun-Jo An, Assistant Professor of Instructional Technology at Texas A&M University-Texarkana. It was nice to speak with several of you about two weeks ago. I am originally from Seoul, Korea. I received my M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Instructional Systems Technology from Indiana University Bloominton. I have been teaching here at A&M-Texarkana since June 2008. Before I came here, I worked for an e-learning company as an Instructional Designer. I am very excited to serve with you all.

[Cathy Swift]

Welcome, fellow Texan. I think I mentioned I received my MBA from Indiana a few years ago. Go, Hoosiers.

[Ann Steckel]

Hey Everyone. I am Ann Steckel of the Academic Technology Department/ Technology & Learning Program at California State University, Chico. After a long career of teaching mathematics, I arrived at Chico in 2006. I have been involved with virtual world education since then and have participated in numerous projects both just for fun and for work.

Currently I am working on CLIVE island as well as coordinating the virtual safaris. I have experience working in multiple virtual worlds as an admin and a participant and presently am the admin for a number of CSU Chico projects. Another one of my favorite activities is to participate in the VWER group as a moderator.

As a past Grape Camp participant, I am excited to get started on the peer review part of this process and see where it takes us.

[Cathy Swift]

That's great, Ann. I look forward to working with you. (Ann and I met in person at the conference in July.

[Annie Jeffery]

Hi,

I'm Annie from Boise State University Department of EDTECH, where I have teaching been virtual worlds graduate classes from the U.K. I recently moved to Boise to begin my doctoral studies, so I'm still finding my feet at the moment. Over the years I've been both a player and designer of games (albeit small learning ones), researched and implemented several digital repositories and spent four years in Second Life both teaching and researching. To date, I've taught 2 virtual worlds classes for BSU, co-authored a short faculty training project with two other universities, and worked on a number of small virtual worlds research projects.

My virtual interests are sound in virtual environments, collaboration and construction in virtual worlds, and multimodal/sensory learning. I'm also really interested in the possibilities of large-scale virtual environments, particularly from a sensory/auditory perspective.

I'm looking forward to working with you all!

[Cathy Swift]

Thanks, Annie. Annie shared a few learning objects she created. I hope she adds them to the MERLOT collection!

[Karena Senchack]

Hi,

I'm Karena Senchack and I work at California State University Northridge as an assistant director of Distance Learning Innovations in the Tseng College of Extended Learning.

I've been involved in higher education and also the training and development field for over 20 years, and am deeply commited to life-long learning. This is an exciting time in the field of E-Learning, M-Learning, V-Learning....oh well....learnig in all it's kaleidoscopic dimensions...and am delighted to be a part of the MERLOT Online Learning Community.

[Cathy Swift]

Thank you for joining us on today's call, Karena.

[Karena Senchack]

Cathy,

What a delightful opportunity to meet such interesting people from around the global...global learning is one of the most exciting aspects to me about being part of an online learning community like MERLOT.

Thanks,
Karena