Online Learning
PRIMER FOR
SUCCESS
IN THE ONLINE
ENVIRONMENT
Prepared by Professor Linda M. Elfers-Mabli
Distance Learning & the While youʼre excited about beginning
Adult Learner
a new phase in your pursuit of a col- Once You’ve Enrolled...
lege degree, youʼre also probably
apprehensive about being in a “class- As a new online student, you will need
room” again, either picking up where a username and password to send and
Your work, family, friends, and com- receive university-related emails as well
you left off years ago or starting col-
munity all require your time and en- as access your online course material.
lege for the first time.
ergy. Now online college courses
have been added to your list of re- Visit ____ and click on “Create New
Itʼs been my experience teaching Account.” Once on that page, just
sponsibilities.
adult learners (something Iʼve done follow the few simple directions to
for over twenty years both in a class- initiate your email account. Keep in
Online college courses offer consid-
room and online) that adult learners mind, though, that it can take up to 24
erable flexibility to you, the adult
bring valuable skills and experience hours for the university email system to
learner, who must juggle many varied
to their coursework. generate your account.
tasks. You probably considered online
college courses because you can Once you have an active email ac-
Itʼs also been my experience that
work on the material any time, any- count, ______ and type in your email
adult learners can feel overwhelmed
where, as long as you have access to username and password to be taken to
with both starting college classes and
a computer and the Internet. what we call your “portal” page. This
adjusting to online learning, so Iʼve page gives you access to your online
prepared this handout to help you feel courses and other useful online univer-
The first week of the semester re-
more comfortable. sity services.
quires a considerable amount of your
time and energy in order for you to
My best wishes to you in your deci-
reach some level of comfort in this
sion to begin your college career.
new and exciting learning environ-
ment.
Discover how you best learn and then read about strategies that suit your learning
style by visiting this very useful (and interactive) site.
Understanding [Link]
Your Learning Style Pick up some useful learning strategies from this short webpage.
[Link]
Time Management meeting times and travel to campus.
However, the sense of freedom you will
experience can also lull you into serious
Necessary Plug-ins for Your
The typical online student is a responsi- procrastination. Computer
ble, highly motivated adult learner, but
many students don't realize that there's In order to save your eyesight, it might be •Adobe PDF Reader
much more to the online learning experi- a good idea to print out the lectures (es- •[Link]
ence than checking in online a few times pecially the longer ones) so that you can s/acrobat/rea
a week. leisurely read them offline.
•iTunes (to hear my podcasts)
It's important to note that while you are •[Link]
not sitting in a college classroom three
hours a week - listening to a professor's Computer Management
lecture and taking notes - the material in
an online course requires a minimum of
three hours of reading. These three hours
Consider your ability to have access to a
Using the University System
take into account the three hours you
computer and the Internet. Some stu-
would have spent if you were sitting in a
classroom.
dents rely on liberal computer policies at Forwarding Email from Your University
work because they do not have a com- Account
puter with Internet access at home. First,
Add to that, the time necessary to prepare
make sure your company allows its em- There is an option you might want to
written assignments (essays, research
ployees to use its computers for personal consider, that is, forwarding your
papers, and discussion board participa-
reasons. Some employers don't. Even email to a private email address.
tion) leading to a total of six hours per
with a computer at work, some students
week devoted to one three-credit online
find they must stay late or go into work on Visit ____and click on the “Mail For-
course. warding” button.
weekends to complete their schoolwork.
Iʼm sure you have developed time man-
If you want to work on a course at 1:00
agement strategies over the years. If, Keeping Your University Email Account
a.m. (which many students prefer or need
however, you want to calculate where Current
to do), then seriously consider buying a
your time goes for all your activities, in-
computer and subscribing to a high-speed
cluding taking an online course, visit the Every month or so, check your univer-
Internet service for your home. High-
following interactive website. sity’s account capacity (located on the
speed Internet service, either through
lower left-hand side of the email
your phone or cable company, is critical to page). If you’re close to reaching
[Link]
make optimum use of the multi-media your account’s capacity, make sure to
features of online courses. delete unnecessary emails; otherwise,
if your account exceeds its limit, you
Set up a section of bookmarks on your won’t be able to receive any emails.
Online Course Management browser program and label the section for
this course. This could help you later in Keeping in Touch
Establish a time (preferably on Mondays) the semester if you want to refer to an
external link mentioned earlier in the Check your account daily for mes-
when you can spend at least one-half
course. sages from me.
hour familiarizing yourself with the week's
assignments and pertinent links.
Set up a separate folder in your email Try to make every effort to respond to
program (preferably in Webmail, the uni- email messages within 24 hours.
Once you've checked the course work-
load for the week, you can determine versity email system) so that all incoming
when and how much time you will devote and outgoing messages for this course
to the various course assignments during can be easily found.
the week.
Create a new folder for course-related
Make sure to check the "Announcements" documents so that all work for this course A Final Comment
section of the course webpage several can be found in one place.
It takes a couple of weeks to adjust to
times a week. I use the "Announcements" an online course. Once you've estab-
section to alert the entire class about es- One last tip: Back up your word process-
lished a flexible, reliable schedule, as
say due dates, changes to lessons, etc. ing files on a CD, in case you misfile
well as an organization strategy, you'll
something on your computer or your
be able to enjoy all the benefits of
Set up specific blocks of time each week computer decides to go on an unsched-
online learning.
to go online to complete your assign- uled vacation.
ments. Certainly, by its very nature, an
online course allows students to work
whenever they want. Online courses
eliminate the need to commit to specific
