Hi

The key things to do to get started on in our unit are:

• Go to our unit’s Moodle site. This contains resources, forums and other useful tools. Check it out; particularly the Weekly Schedule and the Assignments, both in the top centre section of Moodle.

  Also, see the Study Guide (in the Study Guide section on the left-hand side of Moodle). The Study Guide contains the key resources for our unit. The Weekly Schedule shows you the topics we will be studying each week, the readings each week (from the Study Guide) and also when the assessed learning tasks in our unit are due. You will see there is quite a bit happening in our unit every week, starting in Week 1.

• You should familiarise yourself with the assessment in our unit. The key assessment is a major assignment broken into two stages (ASS#1: 25%, ASS#2: 70%) with each stage building on the one before; and with each stage having steps due progressively through the term.

  For example, ASS#1 is due at 11.00am Monday 7 August (Week 5). In addition, Step 1 (the first step) of ASS#1 is due by 11.00am Monday 17 July (Week 2); and Step 2 is due by 11.00am Monday 24 July (Week 3). Step 1 involves us reading the Introduction and Chapter 1 from the Study Guide and including some of your key concepts and questions from these readings. Step 2 involves setting up your personal profile on Moodle and setting up your blog.

• The other part of the assessment is PeerWise (5%). Being active on PeerWise can also really help you with your major assignment.
  Now one thing you should get started on right away is PeerWise. Click on the PeerWise folder (just beneath the Weekly Schedule) in the top central section of Moodle. There you will find everything you need to know about how to get started on PeerWise (and also the marking guidelines for PeerWise). You should register and get started on PeerWise now. It is open and you can start now. No need to wait until Week 1. I have already included a few questions in PeerWise to get things started (which will also help me get my own personal score on PeerWise started too!). Catch me if you can!

  The idea with PeerWise is that you read the reading from the Study Guide each week. You can see what chapters from the Study Guide to read each week from the Weekly Schedule. And you can find the Study Guide by clicking on ‘Study Guide’ in the Study Guide section on the left hand side of Moodle.

  Tip: There is a great advantage in starting PeerWise early. So if you want to get a great score on PeerWise, I strongly advise you to get started now. 

• Join our unit Facebook page; which you can also find in the Communication section on the right hand side of Moodle. Click on this link and ask to be included as a member of the Facebook page of our unit. You then might like to write a post saying hi to everyone and introducing yourself to others.

  You will quickly realise that interaction and discussion with others in our unit is critical – indeed, essential – to be able to complete the assessed learning tasks. You will find you need to discuss with others to help you develop your own understanding and personal meaning about key concepts in accounting and, indeed, about what accounting actually is.

  So you may need to adjust how you learn, to learn for understanding (rather than simply ‘rote learn’ material you may not properly understand for yourself); and as you seek to understand what we are studying each week through your discussions and interactions with others, you will find a lot of these interactions we have with each other will be online.

  Our Facebook page, the various Moodle forums, our blogs and UCROO (pronounced U-Crew) are key vehicles we will use to help us connect with others in our unit, no matter where we are; whether on any of our locations or online across Australia. You will find there are a really great group of people in our unit to interact with; and as we all have different companies, we can share our work freely with each other and discuss aspects of our assignments without any fear of people ‘copying’ our work. You will find we all need to understand the key concepts for ourselves, for us to be able to apply them to the special and particular situation of our own individual company.

• I will give you your own company at the end of Week 1, at 5.00pm Friday 14 July. This will be available in the top central section of Moodle. I will also email everyone (as well as post on our unit Facebook page and on my blog ) to let you know when they are available.

Also, I will send emails to everyone from time to time. If you miss any of these, you can find them here. You can also find them in the Communication section on the right-hand side of Moodle by clicking on Martin’s Emails.

I look forward to working with you this term.

Regards

Martin