Okay, I'm glad this posting weekly idea wasn't a New Year's resolution - I've already failed. I guess I should add it to my "to do" calendar on Mondays so I'll have a better chance of remembering. Things are still very busy for me. Summer school has gotten into full swing (and is actually almost half over!); my dissertation is progressing, though still not as quickly as I'd like - I'm waiting on feedback from my mentor on chapters 1-3 in order to have it prepared to send to my committee. Meanwhile, I'm revising a grant proposal submission for some research funding (that might, hopefully conincide with and provide some funding for my dissertation), though things are not smooth - one of my facilities backed out on me, and I'm starting over with another one.

In the way of technology and e-learning, our Dean (and hopefully, our university administration) is getting on board with and more supportive of electronic learning opportunities. We have a college goal (well, MANDATE) of having at least one exam per course each semester computerized and developing at least 50 examination questions per course that are comparable to our discipline's certification/board exam. This keeps me occupied between my other tasks - WHEW!

I would love an on-line teaching position to boost my income/cash flow and help pay for my tuition, but so far, everything I've seen requires a PhD - "catch 22"!!! : ) And, so it goes....

Where Have I Been?

Okay, I am quite ashamed of my lengthy absence, but must be honest that the origination of this blog was an assignment for a faculty technology workshop I was attending, and once home, I utilized a number of the technological advances I learned about, but just never found (or took) the time for blogging. I am going to try to remedy that, so my goal is to post at least once a week.

Life is really crazy at the moment. Adam, my husband, moves for his job during most of the months of April and May, so I can really empathize with single parents - at least mine is temporary! But, it seems as if those are the 2 busiest months of the year here at home too. We are all trying to wind down with school, and baseball season gets into full swing among other things. I have these great intentions of making significant progress on my dissertation only to find that other things creep in the way (like now having to work at least 2 days a week of what is supposed to be my between-semester break from teaching not to mention all of the work-related stuff I do from home), so once again, the research takes a back seat. I CANNOT let that happen, because my goal is still to complete this thing THIS calendar year! Wish me luck! I continue to remind myself that any amount of time off is more than I'd get in a non-teaching job, but there's also a lot of "stuff" that goes along with it that no one warned me about and that many do not realize! We are working on our accreditation process for a visit from the accreditation team in the Fall. We were already short of faculty, which was an issue with accreditation 5 years ago, and now one of our present faculty members has not been issued her contract for next year!! Go figure! With the heavy teaching load we each have, plus all of the "mandatory" meetings, workshops, paperwork, etc. they pile on us, there's no time to do any research, service, publications, etc. Often very stressful!! Keep praying...is all I can do! Okay, enough moaning, and I'm off to work on this dissertation. Until next week....