Yay! Fall semester is DONE for me!

The community college at which I teach is located in the Western North Carolina mountains, and we have had SNOW and ICE since Sunday, December 12th, and our grades were due today, December 16th!  And the college is closed AGAIN today!!

I have to admit, though I've been complaining a little bit about online classes, but there is ONE very BIG advantage of online classes because my students were able to take their finals on time, probably much to their dismay, I might add.

Anyway, I am DETERMINED to GET AHEAD for next semester.  I am currently working on my classes for Spring, and I am really excited about them!  I found online where a professor had posted his own textbook, lectures, exercises, problems, and sample exams and he gave me permission to use them as long as I don't charge anyone for them, which of course is the furthest thing from my mind! 

Other things that are going on in the near future.....we are beginning a VITA (Volunteer Income Tax Assistance) site in January, we have Phi Theta Kappa invitation letters going out and need to plan for those activities, not to mention I need to make sure to get all my CPE in to keep my CPA. 

I'm really excited about the VITA site.....I currently have 15 volunteers, and though many of them were very thrilled to volunteer, I believe a few felt that they "couldn't say no to the teacher."  However, our IRS contact, Bruce Putman, will be on our campus on January 7th to do a small training event.  We have been waiting on our training material and, as luck would have it, the material has not come yet but the college will be closed soon for Christmas break.  Next year, I'll have to remember to ask Bruce to order the materials earlier.

It is so bittersweet, though, to find out who is graduating this semester.  I am very happy for those students who have met their goals, but I often bond with them, as they struggle to understand accounting, and saying good-bye is sad to say the least, but I am so very proud of them too. 

And then, of course, there are other good students whose life has gotten the better of them.  One single mother of two just lost her home and is now living in a shelter, another very brave student just found out that her cancer has moved to her liver, which is never good news.  One student who has already graduated has not been able to find a job, but is taking care of both his disabled wife and disabled mother.  His unemployment benefits have run out, and he is wondering what he is going to do.

These are tough times, this is when we should ALL pull together, like Americans do, roll up our shirt sleeves and dig our way out!

Sitting Through a Moodle Workshop

I love Moodle!!  Our community college is changing from Blackboard to Moodle, and of course as with any change there are a bunch of things we have to work out, but I can see how Moodle will be so much more user friendly.

DI von Briesen is conducting a workshop for us clueless instructors (clueless as to Moodle) and he is excellent!! 

I really want to move more of my courses to online, but I have noticed that the students learn more in group projects and lecture.  I'm thinking to bring that to the virtual world, use groups, forums, and youtubes of my lectures.

I wonder if anyone else has experience with this?  Of course building an online course is only 10 years worth of work smushed into a week, right?  Hey, why not, after all I am OVERZEALOUS!!!

Teaching Distance Education

Okay, I surrender!  Although I LOVE to teach accounting face-to-face with eager accounting students (or they want me to believe they are eager, I know otherwise, I just don't let them know they're not fooling me), the way times are headed, it turns out I've got to learn, nay, embrace teaching accounting online. 

I've taught a few accounting courses online already, usually with disastrous results.  However, I have only included word, excel, and pdf files, which are boring, boring, and boring.  So, I am now following along with my Charlotte, NC neighbors in Learning 2.0 - 23 things, and hopefully I will create some sort of collaborative learning environment where my students can not just learn, but ABSORB the exciting, challenging, and often beautiful world of debits and credits. 

You, my dear blog, is the first step in this glorious journey.  What is the next step?  Only time will tell.

I leave you with a mysterious, ancient accounting blessing......
MAY YOUR DEBITS ALWAYS EQUAL YOUR CREDITS!