While, in Real Life (RL), I am a "real" woman, in all the virtual worlds I am usually a "tiny" or small animal-ish creature. It is non-threatening, mild mannered, G-rated, and fits my personality. I do have a human avatar as well.
My RL profession has primarily been as a teacher of science, both at the secondary school and at the university levels. Prior to teaching, I did just about everything, except work in the food industry. How I managed to miss that is a mystery.
I received my BS in Biology from Oklahoma City University and my MEd in Gifted Education, also from OCU. After teaching middle and high school a few years, I uprooted my family to move to Greeley, Colorado where I obtained a PhD in Biological Education. I then taught for many years at Northern Michigan University (NMU) in Marquette, Michigan and retired. Retirement didn't last long. I soon returned to teaching high school.
In 2007 I was introduced to virtual worlds by NASA educators (yes, that NASA - the space people). I immediately became very active in the use of virtual worlds for education and have been active since.
With funding from NMU, I built two regions on the virtual world Second Life where I taught university classes including most of the courses in the Masters of Science Education program at the university. When the cost doubled and the funding dried up, I, along with some other virtual world educators, were able to create a number of educational regions. The VIBE* group was able to get a server via a grant and, for quite a few years, have been running educational worlds on it. Currently the server is in the process of being relocated so, in the meantime, I am locating my materials on Kitely (see the page for more information).
Since becoming involved in virtual education, I have presented nationally and internationally at numerous conferences, offered full and half day workshops, and researched the effectiveness of learning virtually.
In my personal life, I have an amazing and supportive husband, five children and their spouses, twelve grandchildren, two dogs, two cats, one bird, one snake and several fish. I relocated to Oklahoma where I live in the same house my parent purchased when I was in high school. Thankfully the shag carpet and velvet wallpaper are gone but the wood paneling is still there.
*VIBE - Virtual Islands for Better Education. A group of educators offering learning opportunities in history/archeology, world health, genetics, biology and Earth systems science.
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