Posts Tagged ‘elearning’
I recently finished a short course on Travel Writing and Feature Writing. The course was taught by well-respected professional writers who want to share their knowledge to amateur writers with passion for the craft. The courses were a new venture for the freelance writers and kinks have to be ironed out, admittedly.
The travel writing course was only 10 hours divided to two sessions. It was quite an enjoyable experience so I decided to sign up for the Feature Writing course as well, even though the lessons were delivered via elearning online method. There were course materials handed out and most of the communication between lecturer and student was done by email.
Although I loved the content of the lectures and the critiquing by the professional writers, I felt like the lessons were too short. Maybe it’s because I was having so much fun doing something I was passionate about! The lecturers were in agreement that we need to do follow up sessions. Someone had the idea to use a forum as a meeting place for alumni and current students. It was a great way to keep in touch and encourage each other to keep writing.
The site we used was lefora.com. Forum administrators have the option to make the forum exclusive by invitation only. Students can drop by and chat with other students and once in a while, a lecturer would join in the discussion. It promotes a healthy, creative and supportive atmosphere, simulating a real community where students can ask question from the lecturers acting as mentors. Due to the limited course time of the elearning online sessions, a lot of topics were left out. In the forums, we can talk about the topic in depth and best of all, the service is free! Lefora is not the only free forum site on the web but it definitely fits our needs.
I would highly recommend having forums as an added feature to any elearning online curriculum and as a platform to follow-up on alumni to see how they are progressing.
My Future Lies in Elearning
Posted on: January 28, 2010
A few months from now, I’ll be 26, a quarter of a century old. I don’t really care about the number that much or the wrinkles and age spots that come with the stupid biological time bomb. Come to think of it, I don’t really care about anything except for one thing probably – wasted time. Yes, I think I have wasted a whole 26 years of my existence doing nothing but sleepwalking through life.
But things weren’t like this a few years ago. I used to have a goal – to finish my graduate studies and live as an academic for the rest of my life. Somehow, I lost my mojo to continue it and well, there is also the need to work for money so I decided that my master’s degree should take a back seat. During my hiatus from graduate studies, I wondered aimlessly through the corporate clouds but the desire to go back to school has always been there.
Right now, I’m still in that same limbo state. Grey area is what they call it. I guess that only chance I have to go back to school again is if I could enroll in some elearning program related to my discipline. I’m planning to contact my University and inquire about their online courses since it would mean more work and requirement processing if I transfer to a different institution. I just hope I can make it before the registration period ends. So yeah. Technically, my future lies in my University’s elearning program. If they won’t accept me, I would not know how else I could finish my program.
If only I have the luxury of time and money, I would not have to settle for something with less interaction. I would want to relive the daily drives going to school, sitting inside the classroom, physically being present in a real moment with people in my class and not just a computer equipped with a face-to-face interaction elearning system.
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