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Study Tips for Successful Distance Learning Email a Friend

* Tools
Before enrolling in a course, make sure you have access to the tools necessary to complete assignments. A word processor can help you to organize your work and communicate your thoughts more clearly. If your lessons appear through cable television, you'll want to know how to program your VCR to record the programs to refer back to. Access to a fax machine, computer with adequate hard disk space and modem for e-mail transmission are "musts" for many classes.

* Schedule
Set aside a regularly scheduled time for study. If you have not been involved in academic pursuits recently, you may find that your career, family, hobbies, and social and civic commitments leave little time for studying. To help you fit studying into your schedule, keep a record for a week of how you spend your time, and then decide what you are willing to give up. Schedule your studies for a time when you are mentally fresh and able to devote at least one hour to your work. Think of the hour as "reserved time." If you miss too many study periods, revise your schedule.

* Where to Study
You will find it easier to focus in an appropriate environment for study. Find a place that is free from distractions. You might consider work--before or after hours and on your lunch hour--a public library, or a separate room in your home.

* Reading Skills
You must comprehend and retain what you read for real learning to take place. Reading skills can be developed by concentrating on what you read and by taking frequent pauses to organize and review the material in your mind. At the end of a study session, review everything you have read, making special notes of important points. Reading a computer screen can be hard on your eyes; it may be necessary to download hard copies of reading assignments and communications from your instructor and coworkers.

* Communication Skills
It can be intimidating to speak into a microphone in a video or conferenc

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tips online learning

May
12
2008

    • Clark contends that “leaders are needed to define the environment, keep it safe, give it purpose, identity and keep it growing”. He gives a set of mantras for teacher/leaders in any online community:

       
      • all you need is love
      • control the environment, not the group
      • lead by example
      • let lurkers lurk
      • short leading questions get conversations going
      • be personally congratulatory and inquisitive
      • route information in all directions
      • care about the people in the community; this cannot be faked
      • understand consensus and how to build it, and sense when it's been built and just not recognised, and when you have to make a decision despite all the talking.
       

      He cites confirmation that “personal narrative is vital to online learning communities. Personal stories and experiences add closeness, and provide identity, thus strengthening online communities.”

  • William Klemm has a more pragmatic approach[9, 10] to student participation, one that tends to coerce the engagement of post-secondary students in online collaborative learning. A minimum level of online participation as well as a deliverable piece of work relevant to the community activity is a mandatory course requirement. Many universities adopt a similar approach in order to ensure minimum online engagement of each student in collaborative study.
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