Goal Statement May, 2002 (revised January 2003) William R. Warrick George Mason University - Graduate School of Education Each course, nearly each week of the first phase of my PhD program, has brought issues and concepts to grapple with, discussions with faculty to synthesize, and interactions with fellow students to assimilate. All of which combine to influence the development of my academic and professional 'voice'. It is fascinating to me to reflect on my growth during this time and to have a kind of 'ego check' in finding the world of ideas out there still to be discovered. My original goal statement (2000) spoke of my desire to effect change within my school system through the effective integration of technology and my goal to eventually teach at a college or university. Somewhat ahead of my schedule, I find that I have realized that second goal already. I am now a faculty member in the Graduate School of Education at George Mason. Initially, I viewed this change in position from k-12 to GMU simply as a job change. Now that I am a part of the university culture, I view it as another part of my learning experience - and a humbling one at that! The challenges of developing my craft as a designer of learning experiences for graduate students are many. The future course of teaching and learning into distance and virtual arenas provide me with a wide range of opportunities to expand my knowledge of teaching and curriculum as well as investigate and research emerging trends in education. My work with Dr. Norton on developing an online certification course has been a wonderful and stimulating experience. It has given me a great deal of direction for future study. My goals have not changed significantly since 2000. I am still working towards a position at a university (flying from the GMU's nest, so to speak) and I still maintain a close tie to k-12 education. What has changed, are the pathways available to reach that goal. The work in developing online learning experiences has shifted my thinking in such a way as to more readily accept that environment as viable for the development of understandings and skills. I have a great desire to pursue this line of investigation in my future work at GMU and to include study of its efficacy in the public schools. Transferring the concepts into the world of k-12 teaching and learning entails dealing with a number of issues which must be studied and overcome. I find this aspect quite interesting and look forward to learning more about it. I also look forward to strengthening my skills in designing instructional opportunities for students. Working closely with Dr. Norton provides me with a great model to follow. My near-term goal is to continue to teach with her and assume a greater role in designing learning both in a face-to-face environment as well as online. Lastly, I find myself very curious about personal interactions and communication via the Internet. I think that I would greatly enjoy studying and developing knowledge related to interpersonal communication on discussion boards, chats, and e-mail. I feel that, in order to make online learning a viable proposition, more attention needs to be paid to how people interact through the Internet. I think this area of study would be quite interesting to me and provide a great deal of information which would be applicable in the development of online courses. As Dr. Norton often says (after Benjamin Franklin, I believe), "Art is long, and time is short". The more I learn in my courses and teaching, the more I find there is to learn. I am enjoying both my position at Mason and the courses I am taking and I eagerly anticipate the coming semesters.