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| High School Seniors Learning Online |
Online courses add another level of frustration and anticipation. If this is your first time participating in an online course, I hope you did your homework by asking other students that you are able to communicate with or at least talk with technical support as them what you can do to avoid hurdles, barriers, and the empty void when you need help in the middle of the night.
My first online course was quite simple. We exchanged emails with word documents and performed research over the Internet. After this experience, I expected that all online courses were the same. This was my first mistake. A true online course is a classroom requiring you to communicate in real time via video or audio requiring the user to be much more savvy with a computer.
My first week into class, I needed to upgrade my Internet bandwidth because projects that needed to be submitted would timeout due to file size even after compression. Phone, Cable, and Satellite providers of Internet Service all required 10 days to upgrade. Running over to the local college in the middle of the night was my only option.
Feeling that the worst is over, another hurdle fell on my lap. As projects became more intense, I have realized that my computer was actually obsolete along with the software applications I had installed.
Embarking on new added expenses that was not anticipated along with learning new software applications placed me in a spot where I did not have time. I started thinking that taking the class at school would have been much easier and less expensive. Work was a lot more extensive and required to be submitted with aggressive dates as if you were not working.
I learned before taking a class, you will need to speak with the school’s technical support before enrolling. Ask them, what the recommendations would be to avoid contacting them in the middle of the night before the project is due in 30 minutes.
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