PASS | Learning Online

This will be my first time taking an online class. I’ve listened to lecture courses via audiobooks since 2004 and watched lecture series on video for several years. Having the interaction and the responsibility to take good notes will be a change of pace.

To prepare, I bought a paper planner (calendar), a poster-sized year-at-a-glance calendar (sits above my home computer), and lots of sticky notes (which I use to take notes in my books). I also used interlibrary loan to skim through the text books to get a sense of the material and the difficulty level of the reading.

I set up the app versions of Canvas to work on my phone & tablet and made sure I could store my drafts and completed assignments to a cloud-based drive – OneDrive and DropBox. And since it feels awkward posting directly into to canvas, I’ve decided to write my posts using Word and then copying the final version to Canvas.

I will be using my local library as my primary study place – they have Google Fiber! – and several local coffeehouses as my alternatives. I will be studying with headphones in – listening to instrumental jazz, classical music, and ambient programs to block out the noise of my surroundings to better concentrate on my reading and writing.

Reading ahead and taking notes as I read will be my primary study practice. Because I am interested in infographics, I will be trying to convert the appropriate material into a graphic form – chart, diagram, etc. I find I can retain and review better if I can map a text description onto a picture. I also want to experiment using a Wiki software. I’m interested in learning how to use and develop a wiki environment.

I am not sure how many hours a week I will be devoting to class. I think “ramping up” to academic levels of reading will take a few weeks – especially since much of the material is going to be quite new to me. According to US News article, I can anticipate needing to spend about 36 hours a week on the material. And I will be “looking ahead” as the article recommends --noting what’s due in the upcoming weeks and logging them into my calendars.

I am glad that this is a hybrid program. I don’t think I would enjoy the isolation of a completely online course.