AccountingProfBlog

Hi All,

This is a very short tour of my website for my Hybrid  ACC 101 class at Mira Costa Community College.

I plan on spending some time over the summer updating to the Fall Semester information and adding more content

and also a page on what to do if you can’t access Blackboard.

I know it needs more work, but getting started on new technologies is the hardest thing for me, so with this template, I will

be able to add over the summer.

 Tour of ACC101GoogleSite

Thanks,

Dawn

Hello everyone, as we end our journey together, here is my summary of the last 8 months and my assessments according

to the self-assessment rubric.

Week 1 – Introduction - I was starting from gound zero, just getting a picture that was small enough in size to upload was a challenge. I asked my

techno-savvy cousin to shrink it for me and it worked. I had never been to a blog, let alone created my own and tags are something on your clothes.

Assessment- Yes, I did post once a week, no content this week, just trying to get it up and rolling, plenty of time spent on it – this took me forever. Commenting

on colleagues- NO WAY..I was too busy figuring out how to do this.

Week 2 – Teaching & Learning Online- Ok, skipped Week 2, had a flood in my house, and my office was about 4 ft. from the blowers that were humming away for 5 days.

I did realize the power of encouragement via video from Lisa Lane that week, she put out a Week 2 Panic video that gave me the courage to continue on vs. bailing out

on the program before too much time was invested.

Assessment – Yes, I posted,  it was not of significance. Still no commenting on others, too caught up in my own problems.

Week 3 – Basics of Course Design- The light bulb is starting to turn on. I teach at Mira Costa part-time and have heard various instructors non-chalantly say

that they started teaching their course on-line and it sounded like no big deal, no thought, just easy.  It is not that simple.

Assessment - My quality of posting is improving as I move past the newness of the technology. The deeper meaning is sinking in and I reached out to Lisa Lane with my revelation

that there is so much more to creating an on-line class than most think and she concurred. I am still not at the stage where I feel I have the luxury to socialize with the other POT members.

Week 4 – Materials for Online- Intro to HTML- This is an area I have realized I need to spend more time in. It used to be that HTML was for programmers only, but now

it is such a critical language for web pages, everyone should have a basic knowledge.

Assessment – Still weak – there is hope though. I incorporated two weeks into one post and also made the realization that I should be labeling the

posts by week, which I did do for the second semester.

Week 5 – The Online Syllabus- This week was the big discussion between Blackboard and Moodle. My initial reaction is that Moodle has a better design than the Blackboard

for the on-line class format. The format used for Pedagogy First! is such a great example of an on-line syllabus.

Assessment-  I am posting and my quality of posts is improving as my brain gets into the point of the course. I am spending 5+ hours on the course because even the simplest

things take time. I am having a hard time embedding.

Week 6 – Creating Presentations- I decided to do a Slidecast, a big project for me, had to get headphones, download all the new software, but I got it done. I was not successful in embedding

as I mentioned in the prior week, but I completed my first Slidecast and had more confidence that creating these on-line learning tools was not as initmidating as I had thought.

Assessment- My content and quality of posts is improving.  I realized I should have pointed this out in the prior assessments,  I have been reading the textbook all along, as that is the “easy” part of this class.

I know how to read, just have to set aside lots of time to work out my technology challenges. Still spending 5+ hours, and I am still not really engaging in the community and commenting. Feel like

I am in survival mode just getting the tasks done.

Week 7 – The Online Classroom- I had success embedding my presentation from the week before, thanks to Lisa’s tutorial. I loved Pilar’s Voice Thread and am starting to see the link between

creating a community and building rapport on-line, much as you would in real-life.

Assessment - Quality of posts much improved as well as content. It is now registering that this POT class is a community and others are struggling just as much as I am.   We are all

probably  faking our way through, which is what I feel I have been doing.

Week 8 – Creating Community- I joined the Facebook  POT Group community, but am finding that I don’t have the time to check in on it much. As Lisa says, I am reading my InBox. I see

the titles and think it is interesting, but then don’t find time to come back and delve in deeper.

Assessment- Similar to the week before, as this was a continuation of the two-week community discussion.

Week 9 – Student Activities-  I was very excited about the MERLOT site, tons of great, free information out there. The Second Life experience for me was a bit distracting, as I was busy

paying attention to the Barbie avatars and all of the details that someone must have created to make that environment. I don’t feel like I have evolved enough on-line to be a Second-Lifer.

Assessment- My posts are communicating my reflections and thoughts, I am getting better at participating and feel I am reaching out a bit, as I have become more comfortable

with the schedule, technology and have learned the importance of being in the community from the prior weeks.

Week 10 – Blogging for Teaching & Learning - Another challenging week, computer had a virus that brought it down, so another obstacle to completing my POT work, as

well as my class and consulting business. I did however, complete a new Google Site for my ACC 101 class. It was just a shell, but getting started is the important part.

Assessment- I am still doing all of my reading religiously and spending 5+ hours on the course. Posts are fine.

Week 11 – Class Resources & Intellectual Property - This week was especially eye-opening for me. All new material, I had no idea there were so many copyright issues out there. I also enjoyed Robert’s introduction to

Intellicom. I was unaware that Mira Costa had that resource.  The issue of accessibility is important too, you often forget those issues until you have someone in your class that needs it.

Assessment- I found the readings from the text especially enriching this week because of the detailed content that was all new to me. I fell my posts are adequate, still think I should be more

engaged with the POT community than I am.

Week 12 – Resources Online – Summary & Project Gutenburg- Another great resource I would have never known about  Project Gutenburg and  open textbook.  Now I am seeing the benefit

of labeling my posts by week, as I go back and try to decipher what I was talking about each week. The 59 1/2 minutes that the POT instructors did was awesome. I am a big fan of 60 minutes, very clever.

Assessment - I followed all of the instrutions for the summary and realized how much material we had covered and was glad to have the chance to take a look back and reflect.

Week 13 - Creating Class Elements – Part 1 Images & Screenshots - This week I really enjoyed the Flickr tool as I love pictures and think this is such an efficient way to communicate,

as you can just put a little annotation right where you want your viewer to look. The snipping tool was very simple and easy to use. I like those small tips that can make things easier.

Assessment - Now I am really learning, I have learned that I need to put the week that we are covering on the post, makes things much easier. Since I love pictures so much, I found it easier

to view others blogs because their pictures grabbed my attention. I still didn’t really comment much, but I was out there viewing.

Week 14 – Creating Class Elements - Part 2 Audio & Video- I did an exam review using SlideCast for my accounting class and created my first You Tube video. My daughter started the recording on

my cell phone and then I had to create an account to send it to. It was fun and not as scary as I had thought. I must say at this point I am very overwhelmed with all of the accounts I have

had to set up and passwords, etc. for these various programs. I realized I needed to keep a binder and have it all written down, as I could see that I couldn’t get back to these accounts without

some guidance.

Assessment – The class is working, I feel I am less afraid to go out and try new things and I was amazed at the practicality of my SlideCast, the students loved it. Since I was checking out

pictures last week, I made time to check out the other POT member postings.

Week 15- Creating Class Elements – Part 3 – Screencasting & Multimdedia – Survey Monkey example.  I created my fist Survey Monkey to poll my students about their thoughts on the

hybrid format of my class vs. an on the ground class. It was very easy to do, but it did make me realize there is a lot of thought that goes into designing the survey. There

were so many different types of questions and responses. The students responded well to the survey and participated even though it was not a requirement of the class. I think they could

feel how passionate I was about improving their experience in the class and that I wanted feedback specifically on the hybrid portion of the instruction.

Week 15 – MindMap - Creating Class Elements – Part 3 – Screencasting & Multimdedia – MindMeister MindMap example- This week I made a mind-map of the different types of adjusting entries for

my accounting class. The students enjoyed it and to my surprise they opened it up,  again, it was not a requirement of the course, just something extra that I provided. One student even

commented in the Survey that he wanted to see more Mind Maps. I didn’t think it was that great, maybe he was kidding? or he truly did like the pictorial mapping with nodes.

Assessment- My posts are increasing in quality and my ability to embed is improving and I am incorporating that feature more. Continual encouragement from the mentors helps

and also seeing all of the embedding going on in other POT members’ posts. I had two posts for this week because I thought they were related, yet very different. I posted the

Survey separately and then the Mindmap.

Week 16 – Our Students On-line - The students that have grown up with all the technology definitely think differently and I agree whole heartedly with

Matt Richtel’s (NYTimes), Growing up Digital, Wired for Distraction (2010) findings. As educators we need to connect with the younger generation and understand

the best way to utilize technology to help them learn. For my weekly post, I made a FAQ for my hybrid class and again, it is just a starting point that I will be improving on for my next class.

Assessment – When writing my post for this week, I realized how critical it is to be communicating using the same language and style that the students use and even though

we (instructors)  may not be technology geniuses, our student are and for us to be more effective we need to use enough technology to engage them and help the learning process.

The viewpoint from the student and the learner  is what we need to adapt to since their brain’s are wired differently. I enjoyed the comments of other POT members because this

is a point I feel strongly about and it was good to have company.

Week 17 – Classroom Management- This week we learned about time saving tips from the veterans and it was so refreshing to hear from them that you need to set expectations with

your students, and that you are not sitting at your compuer 24×7 waiting for their e-mail. I think when new things come along, the expectation is to go a bit overboard and I see

that happening with the on-line instruction. Students feel that their instructor is available all the time for their questions. Lisa and Louisa’s comments were great to preserve

the energy of the on-line class and not burn out. I created a audio with Audacity and then converted the file to a MP3 file.

Assessment – I feel the audio posts provide a bit richer content because I can speak freely about my observations and I am using technology that

I was completely unware of before taking this class.

Week 18 – The Course Management System - I would summarize this week as the clash of the management systems – Moodle vs. Blackboard. Last week,  I used Audacity

to make my post and Laura commented on Vocaroo and I thought I would try that out. It was easier to use than Audacity.

Assessment – It is fun when other members of our community provide comments that are so helpful. I realized the importance of the interaction

among all of the POT members when I got Laura’s suggestion that Vocaroo was easy to use.  Again I think my posts are more in depth

when using an audio recording because I can speak freely and communicate as if talking in person.   It was so beneficial to hear tips from the

veterans that have been teaching on-line for years, so us “newbies” can be more confident in managing our on-line classes.

Week 19 – Web-Enhanced, Hybrid and Open Classes- What I recall most from this week was the “flipping” of the classroom. Again, this is a point that

really resonated with me. It totally made sense to allow students to work through the material at their own pace and pause whenever needed, or conversely

to just skip through it if understanding it clearly. The real interaction time with the instructor can be used more productively  by working out problems

together, interacting and interpreting the concepts versus the initial learning and introduction of the concept. I had also seen a piece on 60 Minutes about

the success the of the  Kahn Academy and the reversal of the typical classroom time.

Assessment – I feel that my core opinions about on-line  instruction were very aligned with the authors of the text.  I am in the middle of teaching a hybrid course,

so I am a bit partial to that format of delivery. My post regarding this week was related to real life experience, so I felt it was a true and valuable recount of what I have been

experiencing. I interacted with a few fellow POT member too, getting much better at that. The community is pulling me in.

Week 20 – Introduction to Educational Technology & Instructional Design- This week was all new to me, since I am an adjunct instructor at Mira Costa College,

I have really not thought too much about Educational Technology and Instructional Design.   Rick Schwier, History of Educational Technology (presentation 2010)

made me realize that throughout history there have been numerous new technologies and even the paper and pen were new at one time.  He made a very valid point

that technology has to be integrated properly, not just a new way to present the same old thing. I  related to the article Does the Digital Classroom Enfeeble the Mind (2010)

since I have children ages 7 and 9 and they don’t really spend too much time thinking about a topic that they are unfamiliar with, they just Google it.

Assessment – The quality of my posts is where is should be, I am spending more time reading other POT members’ posts  and commenting. I have come a long way

and wish I would have been able to participate at this level in the beginning.

Week 21 – Introuduction to Online Education Theory -  I loved the  Video: Adventures in Online Pedagogy, (Jim Sullivan and Lisa M Lane, Spring 2010 POT workshop)

They explained it so effectively. I had already read the text, but they put it all together in layman terms.  After viewing the video I realized that I was including a few aspects of

instructivism, constructivism and connectivism theories in my own teaching methodology.  It also seemed that others in the POT community felt the same way about this topic.

In  Larry Sanger’s article, Individual Knowledge in the Internet Age (2010) pointed out that knowing some tidbit of information doesn’t make you knowledgeable about the topic.

Ironic, since he is the founder of Wikipedia.

Assessment – Quality and content of posts good, interacting with others and commenting. All is good.

Week 22 – Personal Learning Networks- These are such an important part of living, whether it is on-line or in your community. I feel that is what people exist for (many may

not agree), but I think it is so important to help others along the way. Something that you have already figured out, may only take you seconds to share your wisdom with

someone else and shorten their learning curve. Technology just adds a much more efficient manner for people with like interests to come in contact with one another.

They may be continents apart, but have the same feelings or desires and those can be shared and communicated on-line and you can feel closer to someone miles away

versus your neighbor that doesn’t share your same thoughts and beliefs. Dean Shareski’s video on , Sharing: The Moral Imperative  was very well done and he shared how he

did it as well.

Assessment- We are nearing the end and I think I am getting it. Still good.

Week 23 – Presentations- Well this summarizes things on its own.

Assessment – I put many more than 5+ hours this week to create a finished product summary of the class. I loved Jim Sullivan’s PowerPoint to Helter Skelter encouraing

us to do whatever we wanted to for the final presenation. That relieved much of the anxiety I was feeling about the presentation. This was an excellent way to force us to

succinctly summarize our 8 months of learning into 5-10 minutes. We were forced to weed out the details and focus on the most important aspects.

Week 24 – I posted a Jing on my incomplete ACC 101 Hybrid google site. It is a work in progress to be completed over the summer.

Final Thoughts on Pedagogy First! - The class was great and I really noticed my progression by doing this year end summary.

As a suggestion for next term,  I would make it mandatory to view and comment on two posts a week, maybe it was highly encouraged, but that point

was lost on me until the end and I saw the same comment from others.   As I said in my final presentation, I need to be forced

to do all of these new activities, including interacting, at least initially until it becomes more comfortable.

Thanks to the wonderful village of folks that made this class come together.

Hi Everyone,

I chose to create a Slideshare or Screencast of my POT FINDINGS. I was so worried it wouldn’t be long enough

or have enough material, and it ended up too long (about 12 minutes) Feel free to hit that forward button. I was almost done
with the perfect recording, and messed up on the last paragraph..oh well, it has that real, personalized touch!!

Enjoy and fast forward,

Dawn

Hi all,

There was so much amazing material this week. My favorite was the video from Dean Shareski, Sharing: The Moral Imperative . That was such a masterful piece how he draws you

in with flashing videos of what makes him who is is. This is how all of us are, but prior to all the technology, it didn’t move at warp speed and didn’t quite have the reach

that people do these days. The fact that is was flashing by so quickly sent the message loud and clear of how fast things are moving on-line and it today’s society. I loved the format

he used to also show us how he was creating his presentation, that was such a clever twist. He was willing to share everything he was doing and he shared amazing stories: the teacher from Santa Cruz

that spent 18 hours creating a great math lesson on graphing and felt better that all of his work was used by many. It made all of his hours worth it to know that he influenced so many other learners.

The story from Indonesia of the daughter telling stories with her camera was amazing too. Children are growing up in such a more open world. I love to travel and find it so amazing that people

can now connect with one another and truly see and hear and get to experience another culture without the price of airfare. The two schools that became Skype friends (Alberta and Texas) reminded

me of pen pals when we were little, but on such a more sophisticated and immediate level. Children and adults are fascinated to know that other people out there are interested in what they are doing

or the willingness to strike up a friendship. Dean’s message was well respresented with that video – he presented a convincing story or why it is our ethical responsibility to share.

When I see videos like that I get a bit intimidated on how professional they are, but he did focus in on the little things he did, which was nice..although some of the stuff I was still

marveling at like, the split screen and the cool tools he used to spice up the presentation. I guess all of that comes with time and experimentation. This POT class has gotten me to experiment and not

to be as afraid, so some day, I believe with this foundation I could present a show like Dean’s.

Gardner Campbell’s video on , A Personal Cyberstructure (2009) -  see video  was a bit disturbing to me, but he got the message across about No Digital Facelifts with those pictures

of women in Brazil with facelifts gone bad. He has a funny sense of humor. I do agree with his theory that students need to be their own system administrators and that understanding

the cyber infrastructure is much like knowing how to use the alphabet. The idea of using a tool out of the Learning Management System that you can continue to use after the class is so important.

As instructors we want to encourage continual learning and having outside forums is so much more conducive to that.

Speaking of lifelong learning, we came to the last chapter in the Ko and Rossen text, Teaching Online and they suggested many ways for us to continue our journey of learning and keeping up our personal

learning networks (p. 393) and an awesome Guide to Resources at the end that I am sure I will be using in the future. The learning network is how we all learn, whether it is in person or on-line or a combination

of the two and this class and the text have provided so many ideas. As Jim Sullivan said in his intro – once you get immersed in it all – how do you sustain it? There is so much out there it becomes overwhelming.

I guess that is just the adjustment phase…similar to when e-mail first came out and everyone was forwarding jokes like crazy and then it died down. I definitely feel like we are in the middle of many changes

due to the marvelous technology available today.

For my presentation…I was so relieved after I saw Jim Sullivan’s slide show on it. Thanks so much for that. I am thinking of preparing a slidecast or maybe a Jing on the top 5 technological tools I learned from the class

and how I have used them so far. I was also thinking of commenting on the things that surprised me from this class. Been a busy week, as usual, so will work on that this weekend.

Bye for now,

Dawn

Hi all,

I have tried my voice blogs for variety and thanks to the others that gave me new voice suggestions. I liked Nacho’s Eyejot, so will experiment with that next week. It is too late in the night

to tackle that, as I teach Monday mornings 7:30-9:20am…and it is almost 10pm. I do teach a blended class, which I just love. I do

feel it provides the best of both worlds. It provides the flexibility of using the technology for more laborious tasks like grading homework

and providing review and lecture material and frees up the class time for more interaction and problem solving. Next semester

I am going to work more on the flipping the classroom concept and see if I can be successful with that approach. I am a bit

cautious, so will ease into it.

Dr. Schweir’s lecture on Education Technology was eye-opening. I never really thought of some of the parallels he made back in

time, like paper and pen were technology at one time. I am in my mid-40s, so I was able to easily relate to his progression of the use

of computers in 1980 and the internet in 1990 and Social Networks and Web 2.0 in the 2000′s.  He made a very valid point that technology

has to be integrated properly, not just a new way to present the same old thing. I loved his analogy of the instructor talking about the grasshopper

and how boring it was in real-life and then with the TV broadcast of it – they got the exact same type of lecture about the grasshopper just

streamed through a different media. So true, I do think that many instructors that don’t have the benefit of learning about on-line learning like

we are doing here,  just try to do that same thing but translate to on-line. Like trying to translate a language versus learning a language.

There were a lot of new terms for me – epistemology and constructivism, etc. I am an accountant, not a philosopher or historian, so I had to Wikipedia all

of those terms. Which leads me to the next topic, the article by  Jaron Lanier, Does the Digital Classroom Enfeeble the Mind (2010) brought up a very real

concern or mine. Are students learning to think, or simple just Googling and pasting.  My kids are 7 and 9 and many of their homework assignment instructions

come with “Google the Amazon Rain Forest” and write about your favorite animal. They are not putting much thought into it at all, with Google they can finish their homework

so much faster. It doesn’t matter what their favorite animal was, it is the first one that happens to be picked up by Google at that moment in search time

and that is the one they right down. The art of sitting down and spending time contemplating an issue and thinking on their own seems to be lost. The speed and

accuracy of the computer to do homework coupled with a fast-paced schedule and large quantities of homework, doesn’t leave time for real thinking and debating.

Creative, spontaneous, autonomous thinking takes time, which none of us seem to have enough of. Who is going to be smart enough to keep improving the intelligence

of the computers???

Until next week,

Dawn

Hi All,

I really love the concept of “flipping” the classroom. I first saw it a few weeks ago while watching
60 Minutes and their piece on The Kahn Academy. Since, I too have small children struggling with math,
my first thought was…wow, I have to go to Kahn Academy and get my daughter on there to help her with
her math. Kids love the computer and think it is fun and they also love the ability to stop, and replay.
This beats the old system of note taking and if you missed something, you have to try to find it off the
neighbor’s notes…if you even know anyone else in your class.

I am currently teaching a hybrid class as a trial run for Mira Costa and I love the format for my particular
course, which is College Accounting, the introductory course. This class moves at a slower pace, so I think it
is well suited to the hybrid format. But…having said that…with this flipping of the classroom, any class
would be better suited for a hybrid, because you can really get the interaction in the classroom and have the
see, feel and witness the learning experience in the live classroom. It is so enjoyable to see that “ah haa….moment”
in person.

My format when designing my hybrid class was to focus on problems during the class time, but I do find that
I am having to lecture as well, because they don’t know enough about the basic concepts to do the problems.
That seems to be a procrastination issue, no matter how you set up your syllabus, seems students are doing it
last minute. I am not a full-time instructor, so maybe others out there that do this full-time have
better methods..but that is what I find extends my lecture time is that the students didn’t do the work
they were supposed to on their own.
Loved Jim’s new word …hybridity….My personal philosophy feels that this the right mix of using technology
yet still having the learning process from one another and interaction within the classroom to solidify the concepts.
Until next week,

Dawn

p.s. I was a bit overwhelmed by the quantity of information on Michael Wesch’s Digital Ethnography course page. Did I miss something in the course syllabus as

to why we were looking at that?

Hi all,

What a great week – the clash of the management systems. I am a novice, so completely understood Lisa’s article about how

it all happens. So true…we just do the easiest thing to do and upload files is the path Blackboard leads you down.

From the first few weeks of this class, it has seemed to me that Moodle was the friendlier CMS for on-line classes and keeping

the calendar and schedule upfront and center, so students are staying on track.

Last week, I used Audacity for my comments and someone commented, I think it was Laura and mentioned Vocaroo….That site

was very easy. Just hit the button record and then it had an embed option, so we will see if I can be successful in that…my challenge typically.

Here is my Vocaroo recording
Click Here<a href="” title=”Comments on Vocaroo” target=”_blank”>
 

Not sure why those blank lines are there. I chose to insert the link.

Dawn

Hello everyone,

I loved Louisa’s tips on saving time. It is so great to be able to get pearls of wisdom from the veteran on-line instructors like Louisa and Lisa. I could

tell Lisa’s 7 points were written from experience.

Here is my audio made with Audacity and converted to a MP3 file.

CommentsWeek17

Until next week,

Dawn

Hi all,

Yes, I agree it is a whole different audience out there and as educators it is our job to understand how they learn and realize how technology

affects them and drives their decisions.  Very interesting reading about the social aspects of technology. I can really see the analogy that if you used to

be a social butterfly, the younger generation would now be a big texter, because, yes, you have to have friends to text to and keep up with. I am not a big

game player with technology, but definitely see how that is less social than Facebook and texting. It all seems isolating when you are in the company of a younger

person doing any of the aforementioned activities, but when looked at it from their perspective, I see the social component..they just happened to be socializing

with someone besides the person they are in physical proximity to.

I am teaching a Hybrid class, so I designed my FAQ’s with my Introductory Accounting class in mind. Here they are.

FAQsHybridACC101

Until next week,

Dawn