My professional connections have gotten deeper and more numerous over the past year. I thought about saying “my *virtual* professional connections”, but although the meeting places are virtual, the people and the connections are real. In many cases they extend into other social media, and into physical life (PL, also known as RL for Real Life).

I still attend the same meetings that I did last year, with the addition of ACRL (Association of College and Research Libraries), an ALA affiliate. These meetings and groups still do not contribute directly to my job, but I feel certain that my passion for virtual world education will lead somewhere, eventually. At the very least, they boost my morale and satisfaction with my current, somewhat challenging, job.

My roles in these groups have changed over the year. I got frustrated with trying to find information about the various meetings, so I wound up doing publicity inworld, and on social media, for all of these groups. For Virtual Pioneers, I co-host the biweekly Meet & Greets, and help corral people on tours. I’m a VSTE Facilitator, helping to plan events. I’m the Producer for the ISTE SIGVE Speaker Series. I helped start the Cultural Community Hub. I’m Transcript Editor for VWER, and I help with transcripts for NonProfit Commons. I also helped with streaming sessions for the OpenSim Community Conference last fall (http://conference.opensimulator.org/2013/). My husband feels like even when I’m home, I’m never home!

I make friends wherever I go in SL, at least one a day.The result of all of these connections is that when someone is telling me about their project, I can usually think of someone else who might be able to help them, resulting in more connections within the education community.

I’m giving a lecture tomorrow at the Virtual Worlds Best Practices in Education Conference (http://vwbpe.org), about Professional Education Connections in Virtual Worlds. Last year I could barely attend; I’m hoping this goes well.