Our nominee for president is a true profile in courage, and people like that are hard to come by.

He’s a man who wore the uniform of this country for 22 years, and refused to break faith with those troops in Iraq who have now brought victory within sight.

And as the mother of one of those troops, that is exactly the kind of man I want as commander in chief. I’m just one of many moms who’ll say an extra prayer each night for our sons and daughters going into harm’s way.

Our son Track is 19.

And one week from tomorrow – September 11th – he’ll deploy to Iraq with the Army infantry in the service of his country.

My nephew Kasey also…

Through its ability to enhance social presence, Second Life provides a virtual, learner-centered environment through which instructors and students can mediate the tensions that typically arise in many current approaches to online education. Such technologies allow for a “relationship among learning, playing, and helping” (Barab, Arici, and Jackson 2005, 15) by providing opportunities for human interaction that, in turn, can sustain authentic, meaningful learning experiences. In doing so, they promote curricular innovations that can help students and instructors better understand each other’s needs, abilities, and interests (McCombs and Whisler 1997).

This understanding is necessary in our world where change, globalization, and diversity converge upon our learning environments and where respect and trust are required to foster motivation and learning (McCombs and…