WHY I LOVE MY JOB:

Joel McMahon, History instructor, Georgia Perimeter College

Job: History instructor, Georgia Perimeter College, Dunwoody

What I do: McMahon, 40, says he brings "cool dead people" to life for his students, primarily online. He teaches U.S. history as a series of biographies of well-known and not-so-well-known people by delivering his lectures on the Internet -- not unlike President Bush's weekly radio addresses -- and holding online discussions and debates.

KARL RITZLER/Special
Joel McMahon can teach online history classes from his office at Georgia Perimeter College in Dunwoody -- or from almost anywhere in the world. His office decorations include framed pictures of President Andrew Jackson (left) and James Moore Wayne, a 19th-century Supreme Court justice who is the subject of McMahon's doctoral dissertation.
He records his lectures to his classroom students, then combines the recordings with PowerPoint presentations, video clips and other sound bites for online students. All tests and quizzes are essay questions and are submitted online. Discussions are not live; they're more like a blog. "Some students are Internet addicts," he said. "They are always on and eager to participate." His students' grades are determined partly by how often they post comments as well as the content of those comments. Of the five course sections he teaches, four are online. He also has taught sections of world history, but, for now, only the U.S. history course is available online.

What got me interested in this: "History has gone from being my avocation to my vocation," McMahon said. "I love doing this as much as I love the content." His background is in engineering, and he decided to take a break from the corporate world to earn a Ph.D. in history. "People are coming back to school and sometimes are intimidated by a classroom," he said. So McMahon used his background to structure an online class.

Best part of my job: "The ability to reach students who are all over the country, of all demographic groups and all ages," he said. "What really feels good is the feedback from students, making dead people come alive, making a boring subject lively."

Most challenging part: "Making the online experience more than a data dump, making it dynamic," he said. He says he works to make his online classes more like a classroom by encouraging discussion and debate among students. "There's greater participation in online discussions because you can think before you participate." Shy students get a chance to emerge online, he said.

KARL RITZLER/Special
McMahon in his office.

What people don't know about my job: That he has delivered lectures and led discussions from all over the world -- "anywhere I can get online and check in" -- to students who are all over the world. "I can teach from anywhere," he said.

What keeps me going: "The feedback" from his 200 or so students per semester. "I had a student who was a grandmother and had a heart attack, but she continued to participate. She couldn't have done that with a classroom." He said another student and her family would listen to his lectures together, similar to the way people would listen to President Franklin D. Roosevelt's fireside chats.

Preparation needed for this job: To teach at the university level, you usually need at least a master's degree and often need a doctorate. "You have to know the content like a historian," McMahon said. You also need to know how to use computer applications to deliver content online as well as how to record on-screen and voice presentations, and you have to know how to teach adults. He said he has learned those skills through classes, from colleagues and with experience. McMahon has a bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from Georgia Tech and a master's degree in philosophy from Georgia State University. He is working on a doctorate in history at Georgia State. His dissertation is a biography of James Moore Wayne, "a dead, rich, white guy from Savannah" who was the only Southerner to remain on the Supreme Court when the Civil War began. "All I do is biography," he said. "History is a series of biographies."

-- By Karl Ritzler, for ajcjobs. Got an interesting job that you love? E-mail your story to jobseditor@ajc.com.