My sister has inspired me to start posting again. She has started a Blog about her family's upcoming adoption which can be found on allthedesiresofmyheart.blogspot.com. Today is actually just a trial to help her figure out how to post multiple pictures, so here goes.

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....

Making Progress

I'm proud to say I've gotten a "second wind"! After getting bogged down in summer "school stuff", I've finally had time the past few days to work on adding some of the ideas I gathered while in New York into my fall courses. I am SO excited! Just this morning, I created a Jeopardy game using a PowerPoint template (Walter, I found one through a Google search that a Wake Forest math teacher designed and allows others to modify from hers - YEA!!!) It looks SO cool, and I'm even working on making up one for another one course. AND, I (hope) I have found some software from Google called Sketchup (at www.sketchup.com, if anyone's interested) that will, at least, get me started on my idea of the 3D house students can use to assess their home health patient. This was my "idea" for one of our first assignments, and I posted about it in, I think, my very first BLOG. Maybe I won't need so much help from those computer geeks after all (or am I becoming one!!?? :)

Well, I must get back off to work since I seem to be on a roll!! Hang in there, guys!

News from Cathy

I have slowly been working on my course I started in New York. Now, I hope I am the one who ends up teaching it!! We are interviewing a prospective new instructor today, and we have not worked on teaching assignments for the coming year until we know for sure what our faculty make-up will be. YIKES! I may just have to put my foot down about this particular course after I put all this work into it!!

For this specific course, I've actually found a website with video clips that work better than the things I've found on YouTube! I am so excited. I was looking at the TV guide on-line the other day to see what types of shows were upcoming on Discovery Health (which our cable company does not have, so I've got to find somewhere I can record them first). When I linked on to the Discovery.com site, I uncovered the most amazing wealth of information and numerous video clips of ALL types of procedures, conditions, etc. It was GREAT! So, presently, I am working through my syllabus and incorporating some of them to the on-line portion of my course, as well as into some PowerPoint presentations for many of our "in-class" sessions. The one other drawback is that I am waiting on a review copy of a different textbook, which if I decide to change, may alter my content a little, but maybe not enough to mess up any of my preliminary BlackBoard work. I feel like a NEW teacher (well, no pun intended, since I have only been doing this a year anyway!! :)

Back Home & Back "to the grind"

Well, the weather here in Alabama IS indeed much warmer, mid 90s yesterday, but we FINALLY got some MUCH needed rain - still not enough! I have to admit, though that with the temperature at which they keep this building, I'm not a lot more comfortable than I was when I was freezing to death in NYC!

I have been quite busy since returning to work Monday, so my course I was working on has not taken on any different shape, but I definitely have been "talking up" a lot of the things we learned! I showed our department head and some of her summer research course students how they could use bubbl.us to create orgnaizational charts; I've continued to search "youtube" for useful videos for my clinical conditions course, and of course, talked endlessly about my visit to the "BODIES" exhibit. My husband thinks I'm SICK!!! :)

Hope all of my FRN classmates remain enthusiastic about expanding their teaching repetoire to utilize all of our great info we gained!

WHAT A WEEK!

It is hard to believe this week is over! We have learned SO much, but the time has gone by very quickly! Sorry I missed posting yesterday, but I was busy with my "homework". Now...I've made it (I hope, successfully) through my presentation and am beginning to feel some sadness at our eminent conclusion. I have made some wonderful friendships and hope we can continue to encourage and support each other, share ideas, etc., and I truly have gathered a WEALTH of information that I can't wait to get back (well, actually, I really can - a few more days, anyway! :) and put it to practical use as well as to share it! Thank you FRN, Minchi, and all of my wonderful classmates! I'm headed back down south.....where it's WARMER!!!!