I am the Director of Emerging Instructional Technology for the College of Humanities and Social Sciences at Montclair State University in New Jersey.

I have presented on the topic of Second Life in education both in the U.S. and Internationally and am the author of the EDUCAUSE Center for Applied Research (ECAR) Research Bulletin "Second Life: Reaching into the Virtual World for Real World Learning" and the EDUCAUSE Review Article "Virtual Worlds? 'Outlook Good'"

I founded, and am the current group leader of, the EDUCAUSE Virtual Worlds Constituent Group as well as the founder and Chief Moderator of the SL Education Roundtable, a group that meets each week on Tuesday, within Second Life, and bringing together educators from all over the globe interested in discussing a wide variety of topics.

I hold a M.A. in English, Writing Studies from Montclair State and am a Doctoral student in the Educational Communication and Technology program at New York University.

My current research interests involve the use of technology in the learning and teaching process, specifically social media and networking, and if the way young people learn is changing because of this. I am most interested in ?constructivist views of learning and instruction, and their implications for design and use of education media and technologies? (1)

My research interest have fine-tuned over time. During the process of obtaining my Masters degree I was very interested in the issue of culture, with respect to the Digital Divide, and how, because of this, access to technology impacts writing, specifically those classified as "basic writers".

On My Home Page (see Navigation bar to the left) is a link to my Master's thesis "Culture, Access, Technology, and the Basic Writer". In this I considered issues from both a quantitative and quantitative perspective.

The quantitative aspect includes analysis of data from a series of surveys presented to students in both the Basic Writing and Freshman Composition courses.

(1) http:// steinhardt.nyu.edu/alt/ect