About me

Hi, I am Eileen O'Connor. I have been a chemist, an employee for IBM (many different jobs there), a intro-to-computer & a chemistry instructor, a teacher educator, an adult educator, and an emerging-technologies instructor. I have a great love for the many interesting and exciting ways that technology can enhance learning and communication. In the examples that you will see within this website, I am focused on sharing ways you can work within virtual environments. I began working in these environments in 2007; I could see how engaged the young were in computer games and role playing games and I wanted to get teachers more involved in these resources. I have been bringing many different flavors of virtual worlds to my classes. Here is a link to my resume (so you can see my professional and research interests) but, for now, the most important things for you to know are my skills, abilities, and lacks that I am bringing to my classes. I am hoping to find others who can help me fill in the gaps. Here I am:

• willing and able to work with all sorts of web 2 / 3 technologies; intrepid with moving into things I don't know; I may curse a lot during the process of learning (to myself of course) but the results in skills and communications make the results worthwhile;
• I have absolutely NO ARTISTIC ABILITY - but I can do a mean upload of pictures and images (public domain of course); I find all sorts of ways to make virtual environments with my limited artistic skills but I look forward to more artistic/creative types in the class;
• I can see how the young can be absorbed in these environments - I see it with my grandchildren who will sometimes meet me in virtual spaces all the way from California but I am not a kid (surprise / surprise) so I welcome the perspective of those of you more attuned to the younger generation

WHAT I WOULD DO: I would like to work on creating a virtual platform for a reality-TV-like show where kids come in and compete for science fair projects. They are given difference topics for each show and there are spaces for them to display their work, to do "live" presentations, and to answer questions from actual scientists from around the world. I would have a room that will have many links to good web-resources that can help their project development.

Please do share about yourself - we can all visit our colleagues websites and learn about each other's backgrounds; you can see my 4 children & 6 grandchildren (plus some of the in-laws) below & the birthday party I had to miss in CA - now you see why I want to connect wtih these distance folks. Plus the grandchildren count is now up to 8; I still have to Skype with the distant ones to keep in touch.

With commitment and engagement we will have a wonderful mutual learning and sharing experience.