Your choice: classroom or computer
By Kristi Welch
Buccaneer Copy Editor

Lori Harris works on an online course.
Photo by Kristi Welch

Advisement Day. Time to enroll again. But outside
of the list of your required courses, how do you decide
what classes to take? Which teacher? What day or time
of day? The option usually avoided or overlooked at all
costs is online classes. Online learning seems foreign to
many first time or traditional college students. When
sitting down with their advisor, staring at the computer
screen at the list of options just for a single class, they
often immediately discard the online class because of a
lack of understanding of requirements that the online
environment would entail. With Advisement Day coming
up mid-April, will you consider online classes for
the first time?
The online experience is not as scary as it may seem
but it’s also not quite the breeze that some flippant college
students might expect. When your advisor enrolls
you in your first online class, they will also enroll you in
an Orientation to Online Learning short course. This
course usually takes up to 10 hours of your time but
does not need to be completed all at once. It is required
to finish this course or you may be dropped from your
online courses, though. This course will teach you the
tools used on your online learning platform, from how
to write or comment on a discussion board, how to
put assignments into their designated “drop box” and
how to email your teacher through the course website.
Furthermore, on your online learning site, you will see
announcements posted on the class’s home page for
the whole class, you will be able to access the syllabus
and check your overall grade through certain tabs, and
you will be able to find out your list of assignments
and open documents or PowerPoints that the teacher
inserts.
Online courses have several benefits for students,
traditional and nontraditional. The first and foremost
pro of online learning would be the freedom. With no
scheduled class time and no attendance grade, you are
free to log in and do your class work whether it’s 7 a.m.,
3 p.m., or 3 a.m. You don’t have to calculate the time
you need to leave to get to class on time and you have
up until the minute the assignments are due to work
on them. Along the lines of travel, you would never
have to travel on icy roads or through pouring rain to
make it to class. In the economy, your wallet will thank
you when you do not have to pay for gas to and from
school.

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