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Well, I have had a pretty good week. I am preparing my final presentation for the AERA presentation of my dissertation. Additionally, I just found out that my dissertation proposal to AECT was accepted as a featured research presentation - among only 10 papers accepted in this category. I submitted my final manuscript to the Journal of Educational Computing Research. I will hope for the best!

In other news, I also submitted the final draft of my manuscript to the graduate school at USF. Hopefully, this is the last iteration. I elected to publish my dissertation online. It always bothers me when I found a dissertation I want to review/read, and I am forced to make a special request. Anyway, that’s all for now!

I submitted my letter of acceptance yesterday for the assistant professor position at UNCW. I am very excited about this move. The school has a great reputation, the faculty and staff seem supportive, and the job appears to be a place where I can meaningfully contribute.

I will be moving there in mid to early July. I have to finish a few projects before I leave, but much of my work will transfer with me. Anyway, yay for a new job!

So, we have a little more than six weeks of class left. My gaming students are doing pretty well with their projects. Each of the groups came up with a pretty novel game and they are progressing with the projects. The rest of the semester is going to be devoted to completing the final projects, which should be fun.
Interestingly, I asked my class how many of them have been in Second Life and have explored the opportunities of the environment. None of my students had even logged into Second Life, which is really surprising to me. Our computing students have not been exposed and are not exposing themselves to what the future may be - virtual worlds.

Clearly the tools offer much more than just a place to socialize. It is an entire community and economy. A place to learn, grow, interact, and exchange things of a tangible and intangible nature. I am going to devote two or more lessons to Second Life to spur some interest in the topic. Whether we like it or not, virtual worlds and educational games are going to play an important part of our future.