Test:

Throughout the weeks, we’ve had many discussion boards about a variety of topics. From introducing ourselves to discussion our goals, this posts have reunited many opinions and have made us question and work on ours.

My favorite discussion board however, is a little less philosophical but has definitely changed my study methods. On week three, we had to create an account in an unfamiliar site, for me, and post a screenshot of it. I have been using Trello since I became familiar with it and it has helped me stay on time with my assignments and organize my week ahead of time.

Another discussion board I’ve enjoyed was week two Flipgrid assignment. I’d never had an assignment like this and I had a hard time with it. I had to analyse my options; was I going to create a script? or was I just going to improvise it? This board helped me get our of my comfort zone and had me adopt a new study method. I decided to improvise but that meant I had to really understand Sarah’s problem and knew how I felt about it. At the end, everything turned out fine, but the process before took me a while to get used to.

During my time in this online class, I have learnt to work and study via a method that I had never experienced. I like that every week we learn something new that we can apply to our online learning strategies.

So far, I have learn to manage my time, to decrease the procrastination time and to organize my week in a way I don’t get behind on the assignments. I also learnt that if I start with my “to-do’s” early on, I will avoid procrastination because I will not be as tired as I would be doing my work Saturday night.

I also learnt about an app that completely changed the way I studied and helped me organize my week. The app is called Trello, and I’m still quite amazed with how much it has helped me. I update my Trello board every Friday with my assignments for the next week, this helps me visualize each day and get ahead if I have less work load one day.

I was also able to understand how goal setting for an online class works. Since we worked on that module, I have changed the way I approach this class and it has helped me improve overall. I try to do my work before Friday so if, by chance, I can’t get them done, I have three extra days to compensate. I started to see each week’s assignments as little goals that I can reach every week. Overall, my big goal is finishing the semester strong however, in order to accomplish that I started to set weekly goals that will get me there with time.

Taking an online class requires dedication and self-control and learning to manage them is the key to success. An online class is not easier than a face-to-face learning system in fact, I believe, it is harder and requires mastering the basics before being able to embark on a journey like this.

I originally enrolled in this class because I was planning on taking some online classes from my home country, that way I could spend some time with my families while also earning my degree. That goal is still there, however, since the start of the course I decided on some other things I wanted to learn from it.

I always thought that online class were going to be easier that the face-to-face once and I was wrong. I want to fully understand how to be productive while taking an online class and how to take it seriously; I want to decrease the procrastination time, to have the ability to take useful notes that I can consult later and how to organize all my “to-do” items so that I don’t get behind.

Another ability I want to learn by the end of the semester is learning strategies to take advantage of an online class. I was able to understand how important and advantageous online classes are and I would like to know the tricks to master them. I believe once I feel comfortable with the note taking, time management and goal setting, I will be able to be more adventurous with different types of online classes, from economics classes to history classes.

Last but not least, I want to not be afraid of taking online classes. Once I understood how online classes work and how much dedication and preparation you need, fear started to come to my mind. Being able to take an online class, and succeed, requires compromise and seriousness and it’s easy to loose track through out the semester. I believe that by the end of the semester, I will have a good amount of information that, if I use it correctly, will get me one step closer to mastering online classes.