In any case, I understand your point. Still, I don’t think the “traditional” universities will be the cradle of big changes in education… at least that’s (obviously) not where I’ve decided to apply my efforts.

Eastern Michigan hires people with all sorts of degrees and does look at much more than where the degree was conferred. That said, the current market attracts _lots_ of applicants for each position. There has to be a way to quickly make the first cut. Often, which institution conferred the degree becomes part of that first cut.

Jon

Of course, I can’t speak to Eastern Michigan University. Hopefully they were open minded enough to hire you based on something other than just the institution that conferred your degree. :)

In any case, it took quite a while to hone in on my topic actually. I spent most of the first year exploring “constructivist learning environments” (and organizational change) and in the second year I thought “video games and learning” would be a great new frontier. Of course, much had already been written – and I did two years of research as I slowly focused on my topic of “MMORPGs in K-12 Education” and then later my actual delphi study about potential applications and issues. Even then it took another year… it was five total for me, but well worth it all along the way – and the degree was opening doors from the day I started. :)

Did you find your topic getting honed down pretty quickly after a year or so?

Thanks for sharing!

-Wendy