Getting to know you

[Marla Coffey]

Greetings, everyone! Looks like it's time to update my intro to this thread. When I first posted it, we had just passed the 100 member mark. As of today we have welcomed 535, and many more to come.

Even if you've been here for a while, it's not too late to introduce yourself. By getting to know one another we can truly collaborate in a transdisciplinary environment. None of us can cross disciplines alone, but together we all can!

In the thread below I'll tell you a little bit about me and I hope to learn more about you. What brought you to TCFIR? What is the focus of the work you are doing right now? And if you are comfortable sharing, what interests and hobbies capture your attention when you aren't working?

Thanks for taking a minute to introduce yourself--I'm looking forward to meeting you!

Best regards,

Marla

[José Neto]

Certainly in a wide group of thinkers there are a lot of teachers.

I think that if you want free creativity you will began leave the people power to customize own My Page.

[Włodzimierz Sobkowiak]

I am professor of English philology at the School of English, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, Poland. Over the 31 years of my academic career here I've been researching and teaching many different courses, from EFL (especially pronunciation), through methodology of science anf lexicography, to ICT for teaching. In Second Life I offer free sessions of "Pronunciation with Wlodek Barbosa" at the Virtlantis sim, as part of SLEnglish community service. I'm also involved in co-moderating the Teaching Languages in a Virtual World EVO2010 session. Some of my further web presence is indicated below.

Official website: http://ifa.amu.edu.pl/fa/Sobkowiak_Wlodzimierz
Personal website: http://ifa.amu.edu.pl/~swlodek/
Departmental website: http://zakajek.ning.com
Facebook profile: http://pl-pl.facebook.com/people/Wlodzimierz-Sobkowiak/730881500
My Ning profile (SLEnglish): http://slenglish.ning.com/profile/WlodzimierzSobkowiak
My Ning profile (Virtual Worlds SIG): http://virtualworldssig.ning.com/profile/WlodzimierzSobkowiak
My LinkedIn profile: http://www.linkedin.com/pub/a/599/482
My Slideshare profile: http://www.slideshare.net/Wlodzimierz_Sobkowiak
My Yahoo profile: http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/2GJRMMVZDTDWUEOA4CXQFOTJK4
My Academic Commons profile: http://www.academiccommons.org/user/199
My other profiles and websites: http://ifa.amu.edu.pl/~swlodek/links.html

Second Life:
---------------
SL name: Wlodek Barbosa
SL profile: http://world.secondlife.com/resident/6b1918c0-55e5-4097-99ee-678747...
SL home: slurl.com/secondlife/Virtlantis/219/223/24/
SL office: slurl.com/secondlife/Virtlantis/206/198/21/

[D.E. Wittkower]

Włodzimierz,

Nice to meet you!

In case you're not familiar with LibriVox.org, we're a great resource for English language pronunciation. We record public domain texts and release them into the public domain, along with links to the public domain text. Since it's public domain, you can download and alter as you see fit. Since the text is also public domain, it's ideal for learning pronunciation because the student can follow along in the text as it's read. And, since it's done on an all-volunteer basis, encouraging "non-traditional" narrator voices, our recordings contain a great variety of accents, unlike commercially-produced audiobooks.

Here's a link to my most downloaded recording, just one of thousands of available audiobooks:
http://librivox.org/the-twilight-of-the-idols-by-friedrich-nietzsche/

D.E.

[Shannon Kennan]

Shout out to librivox! I found it recently and am happily listening my way through the classics.

[Constance Kampf]

Hi Marla,

Thanks for the invite to introduce myself. I am a researcher and associate professor at the Aarhus School of Business in Denmark, and did my Ph.d. at the University of Minnesota. My current focus is cross-disciplinary, looking at the interaction between culture and technology as well as the implications of socio-technical design for project management practice. My early research in the ph.d. focused on Native American identity as expressed on the Internet through the Kumeyaay Web Presence, examining the intersection between rhetoric and culture through identification and the rhetorical dimension of attitude (Brockreide).

I have a diverse background (as a colleage at CATaC once said, horizontal depth) and have a background which includes rhetoric, scientific and technical communication, linguistics (especially language contact and language death), educational technology, TESOL (teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), culture, and civil engineering.

So instead of trying to get out of the box, I keep looking for it, and although I haven't found it yet, I am definitely enjoying the mix. I am also a member of the Centre for Internet Research at the University of Aarhus, Denmark. http://www.cfi.au.dk/en

I enjoy my life as an American in Denmark, and have joined the Aarhus Freediving Club and the Viking Club (a winter bathing group-- we swim in the Baltic during the Winter and have saunas to help us want to go back in the sea)

CATaC is a fabulous conference which will be in Vanccouver this year. The acronym stands for Cultural Attitudes towards Technology and Communication. It is led by Charles Ess and Fay Sudweeks. The call for papers can be found at: http://blogs.ubc.ca/catac/catac-2010/

Looking forward to participating in this forum. I have really appreciated the interesting posts which I have encountered so far.
Cheers,
Constance

[Mark L FInk]

Hi Good Folks,
My research interests are in Education, Informatics and Cybernetics. To this end, I specifically am interested in learning technologies and their use in regards to cognition (neuro, meta, shared). Since empirical research shows that learning is social, my most recent inquiries are in relation to interaction (symbolic, peer, social, formal).
While it is still a fasinating area, I am finding my interests broadening to other areas of learning, including the systematic or systemic nature of learning organizations: If one instructor impacts 30 (or 400) in a classroom (regardless of delivery modality), then what impact, if any, does the organization make that can be attributed to improve or decrease learning outcomes for the students served?

My hobbies are water-based (Lake Mead), outdoors (Red Rock Canyon), or indoors (Table Tennis). I am learning to play PS3 games to a level that will allow me to last long enough to at least win one level (old guy, new tricks). Avatar on PS3 in 3D is awesome! I'm learning about flora and fauna -- although they are imaginary plants, the narrative compares them with real plants. So, even though I'm "fighting my way through" the game, I'm learning. I don't feel desensitized toward violence in real life, but realize there are some interesting studies in this area.

[Sharon Tettegah]

Dear Marla, As I perused the thread I did not see any information about you.Can you please re-post or post something about yourself. Meanwhile, I will discuss my interests My Ph.D. is in Educational Psychology. My work focuses on the integration of educational, technology and psychology to investigate empathy and social emotional learning. I have used simulations to investigate empathy. I use to teach in Second Life, but became bored. I like to think about new ways of learning using a variety of media.

[Sharon Tettegah]

I forgot to post my recent book that was released in November 2009.

[Peg Achterman]

Hi - Thanks for the opportunity to join in the discussions Marla & Reid. I come at Internet Research relatively late in my career having worked in television news (as a photojournalist) for most of my working life. When I "retired" from the daily news beast I went to work for Grass Valley - the broadcast equipment manufacturer - traveling around the US and the RoW (that was GV's term for Rest-of-World - always made me laugh) - teaching non-linear editing and content management systems in newsrooms. This took me from little places like Florence, SC, to Doha, Qatar, to Singapore to NY City. It also made me want to learn more and teach more so I returned to work on my PhD in Communication at the University of Washington. I am now a Candidate and working full time a small university in the Seattle area - Northwest University. My research revolves around how "legacy" media are (or are not) taking advantage of their websites to produce multimedia - specifically are they doing anything new with this "new" way to tell stories? Part of this work involves establishing a way-to-look at multimedia through content analysis.
Looking forward to hearing from people here. Oh - and on a personal note - I have the BDE (best dog ever) Skye - a border collie/spaniel mix and enjoy cycling, gardening and pretty much anything that keeps me outdoors in the Pacific NW.

Peg