I've been professionally involved in education for 40 years, but not always in TESL: I began
with a B.S. in Music Education at Illinois State University. That seemed a good fit because
I'd been involved in music since elementary school. I enjoyed undergrad school; I was in
both choral and instrumental performing groups and also wrote and arranged music. When
I started teaching, however, I discovered that making music and studying about it were
quite different from teaching it, so after struggling for three very long years, I decided to
seek another career.

I then enrolled in Olney Central College (a two-year school near my parents' home) for
extra coursework in English. My idea was to get an M.A. and PhD. in English Literature
and Composition, so after OCC, I began graduate studies in that area at Southern Illinois
University. During my first semester there, I came to another roadblock: I learned that
friends and classmates with those very degrees were not able to find jobs and were
driving taxis and waiting tables in order to pay the bills.

But then I got lucky. SIU was, at that time, one of only a few U.S. institutions offering
graduate degrees in Teaching English as a Foreign Language. That sounded interesting,
so I enrolled in a few classes just to see what TEFL was like. It was wonderful! I ended up
getting an M.A. and have been active in that field ever since.

That was about 35 years ago, and since that time, I've been an ESL teacher in public and
private secondary and post-secondary institutions, including two university IEPs and a
community college. I've also been a materials developer, a textbook editor, and (briefly)
an administrator, and have worked in ESL in the U.S. states of Illinois, Oklahoma, Texas,
California, and Oregon, as well as here in Arizona. Unlike many U.S. ESL teachers,
I have not taught abroad. I have, however, traveled to some interesting places—almost
every U.S. state, two Canadian provinces, Mexico, much of Western Europe, Taiwan,
Korea, and China. These trips and many years of experience in working with international
students from about 50 countries have helped me change from an "Amurcan" to (I hope)
a citizen of the world.

Until recently, I taught ESL and Developmental English at Estrella Mountain Community
College in Avondale, Arizona (a northwestern "satellite" of Phoenix), but I've been on
medical leave since November 2006 and have had to resign from that position.

I first became acquainted with blogging in the mid-1990s, not long after blogs began
to appear frequently on the WWW. In those early days, however, most of the blogs
that I remember were essentially online diaries which gave accounts of bloggers'
personal activities and observations. I created a blog or two at that time, but was
not really satisfied with my efforts—and was also a bit uncomfortable with the other
blogs that I read: they seemed to be collections of rather private thoughts, and
I couldn't shake the feeling that I was, somehow, intruding in the personal worlds
of others. I also decided that I really wasn't comfortable sharing my own personal
world, so I deleted those early efforts and forgot about blogging for almost 10 years.

By the mid 2000s, blogging had changed. The idea of blogs as personal online diaries
remained as one option, but blogs were also beginning to be seen as interactive
entities which could evolve "organically" based on the comments made by others.
I was interested in this new development and put several blogs online. Although
I eventually deleted most of them, one (from 2004 or 2005) is still accessible.
Oddly enough, it's one of the "online diary" types; I've kept it private because
I use it mainly as a way of recording and reflecting on changes in my life, especially
my life vis-a-vis computers.

But at around the same time, I also began to produce blogs which were more
interactive, participative efforts. In moving to this new (for me) focus, I began
to see blogs as a way to collaborate—and become a "co-teacher" and "co-learner."
Two amazing bloggers, Barbara ("Bee") Dieu and Carla Arena, have been my
constant inspirations in blogging of this type, and I respect and admire both of
them greatly—not only for the many insights they provide on making co-teaching
and co-learning possible, but also because they are both multi-talented "citizens
of the world." They're wonderful models for how to facilitate involvement in the
social aspects of learning, gifted with an "artist's eye"(see their many wonderful
photos in Flickr), and would, I think, be at home anywhere. Bee, for example
is often invited to be a keynote presenter for international conferences (both
virtual and real), and Carla (who is currently living in Key West, Florida in the
U.S.) is becoming widely recognized for her blogs and podcasts.

I have never had the pleasure of collaborating with Bee, but insights she has
provided at Dekita, at postings to the Webheads online community of practice,
and in numerous online conference presentations have helped me develop and
implement many insights on facilitation. I have worked with Carlinha—initially
with the "International Exchange" blog, more recently with her first online course;
I began to apply much of what I had learned from Bee there, and I added to that
what I learned from observing what Carlinha was doing. I can't thank either
of these gifted, sharing women enough!

My time is stretched a bit thin at the moment, so I will likely be a lurker in the
SMiELT sessions. I will, however, be learning, and I am eager for the ride
to begin. I think it's going to be an exciting one!