From taking this online course, I have found many of the resources and lessons we learned extremely useful, and I am excited to apply them to other courses that I take in the future. My three biggest takeaways from this online course are to use the resources that are available to you, learn tips for working in groups (especially in online courses), and learn the best ways to set goals and increase your motivation. I hope you enjoy viewing the tips and tools that I find helpful!
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Resources Helpful for Online Courses
Overall, this course taught me a lot about how to manage my time, stay organized, set goals, work in groups, and learn new ways to communicate with others. I have listed a few links to sites that I believe are helpful when it comes to online courses in general.
Trello is an online organizational site that allows you to create a weekly To Do list. The site allows you to prioritize events and assignments with color coding, and it also allows you to set dates and times of when things should be finished by. I found this site very helpful, and I recommend this to anyone who has difficulties with time management.
2.) Carmen Connect- https://resourcecenter.odee.osu.edu/carmenconnect
I did not include a link to this, but this is a common tool in OSU online courses, and I found it beneficial, especially during our online group collaboration project. This was very easy to work with, and it allows you to meet with your peers while also listening to the instructor’s lectures. It is important to work with this a little bit before you must use it for a course because if you are not familiar with it, it can be confusing. Other than first learning to use Carmen Connect, it is easy and useful when it comes to collaborating with others.
Group Collaboration in Online Courses
Because this is one of my first online classes, I was highly intimidated by the idea of group collaboration. Group work is already very tedious in face to face courses, and I had a lot of anxiety about working in groups from a distance.
This course offered many useful ways to get in touch with group members while also giving us the opportunity to get to know them. The tips and technology we learned in this course were extremely helpful, and I recommend these to anyone who is having difficulty working in groups in online classes! I have listed three useful online go-to’s that have helped both me and others in online courses.
1.) Google Drive – https://www.google.com/drive/
Google Drive is an online tool that is connected to your Gmail account. If you do not have a Gmail account, I recommend making one, and using this to develop your Google Drive skills. Google Drive gives you the opportunity to share documents and presentations with others so that multiple people can work on it at once. This serves helpful when a presentation is due, and each group member can make their own slide on the same presentation, and then transfer them to a Powerpoint to then turn in to the instructor.
2.) GroupMe – https://groupme.com/en-US/
GroupMe is a group messaging app that is very easy to work with, and all you need is your group member’s phone numbers and the app itself on your phone! It works better than normal messaging because it is much quicker and easier to connect if certain group members have different types of phones. Through this app, you can discuss due dates and group assignments with your group members. I used this in my group collaboration project, and I found it extremely easy to work with.
3.) Doodle – https://doodle.com/
As for meeting scheduling tools, I find that Doodle is very useful, especially if you have a large group. This web-based tool is very easy to work with, and it allows each group member to preference a day and time that works best for them. Doodle gives an ease to creating a meeting place and time, and it can ease the stresses about online group collaboration.
Helpful Tips Learned in ESELTECH 2011
One of the most helpful lessons I learned in this online course is the importance of setting goals and increasing your motivation. I believe that this lesson can be applied both in education and personal endeavors. Because we learned very much about short and long term goals, I have included my reflection paper from the week we covered this topic. I also wanted to include my reflection paper from this topic because it includes a lot of information about how I am currently applying the lessons we learned in the course to my own life.
I hope you enjoy looking into the aspects of goal setting and motivation that I find extremely important, and maybe you can apply them to your own lives!