Math Teacher and Technology User

My ever changing life has me back in the classroom teaching mathematics to high school students. . But with this change came to opportunity to focus on lesson design, student engagement, and constantly thinking about how I teach and how my students learn. As a math student it is often difficult to make connections to math usage, and through the FACTS model of lesson design, I was able to use the authentic and problem and techniques to add flavor to my instruction. Students were exciting about their learning and had a meaningful connection to real world connects.

My previous position as the schools ITRT, an Instructional Technology Resource Teacher, allowed me to access those technology skills and channels available but not utilized.. I found research techniques vital to accessing new information and added a proper tool for good classroom instruction and design. I connected with other organizations for more meaningful learning. With my own learning growing dramatically, I was able to successfully redirect and incorporate many new situations to colleagues in my building

Technology Facilitator and Designer

In this position I also had the unique opportunity to meet and work with many similar colleagues from around the the state of Virginia through the North Tier Consortium. This group of Northern Virginia schools, with the help of a grant, offered technology professional development to teachers around the Northern VA area. I became my district's representative, and the avenues of exploration began to open again. The spiral grows tighter as I was able to become a trained online facilitator for North Tier and I was tasked with creating a course to be added to the professional development catalog.

In the summer of 2009. I helped create a course titled Games, Simulations and Virtual Environments. This course allows teachers to gain the hands-on experience for using these tools in the classroom to aide in classroom instruction. In creating the course, I used a constructivist methodology. Teachers had to experience and use the sites and activities to better understand how they can help in the classroom. These layered hands-on type of activities gave experience and meaning to the situations we placed them in with the course. It was through discussions and interactions with their classmates they were able to find the relevance for instruction.

Virtual Environment Advocate

All the while, I had been investigating and researching the virtual environments which exists. I had been teaching a class called personal finance, which had become very successful, very quickly. In this course I found a virtual environment to use in conjunction with teaching the course. I became so involved with the program, I formed a relationship with the creators and developers of the virtual environment we were using. I convinced these same developers to attend a conference I was presenting at with a student about their program. We had many positive comments and many other districts and school who began using their curriculum. The program directors attend the conference the next year as full time exhibitors and expanded their users again. This has been the most satisfying experience of my professional career. Helping this virtual environment to grow and introducing thousands of users and teachers to a new concept in learning personal finance.

Virtual Environments Researcher

This is the spark which fuels my desired research. As I follow others who have blazed research trails into using games, simulations and virtual environments, I have discovered newly created branches of organizations, special interest groups, and peer-reviewed periodicals which fuel this spark. I want to add to this talented pool with my research using this virtual environment as a treatment to learn good habits for teaching students personal finance. My hope is this will make smarter investors and financially success adults.

For all of my projects in my research courses I have focused on incorporating some aspect of virtual environments into my coursework. This use of my research interest in a majority of my assignments has given me the opportunity to focus on different parts of a research project. Understanding the the details of participant selection, the intricacies of analysis and proper investigation on topics presently in publication.