BellaOnline Forums Education Distance Learning Preparing for Online Classes

I had papers due each week too. It's a lot of work but worth it. Don't worry about posting too much. I posted lots and got straight A's. Ended up with a 3.92. Not bad for an old lady who had been out of school over 40 years. All my instructors gave us phone numbers and times we could call them. I called every one of them for one kind of clarification or another, and the calls were always well received.

That is *awesome* Granny - congratulations! Good for you!

We don't have any phone numbers posted, only email, but that is fine for me. I do not like phones, so I would much rather do email. I know I'm odd!

emails are fine when there's a lot of time. I found it helpful to have phone numbers because I could get immediate answers to my questions. When you're working on an assignment Monday that's due Tuesday...quick answers are great. My classes were accelerated. I took two courses every nine weeks, active in a class (ie discussion) every other week...The off weeks there were 2 assignments and a paper due. I was able to finish 2 years of school in the same length of time I would have gone to a brick and mortar school...just on my own schedule. If I went on classes are 5 weeks long. I decided 2 years is enough for me. I want my school loans paid off before I retire in a couple years.

At Northeastern you have a choice. You can take regular 12 week long classes that have a paper due every week and discussion posts required twice a week (so say Wed and Sat). You can also take faster 6 week long classes that require a paper every 3-4 days and discussion posts every 1-2 days.

I was already in enough of a panic about working classes into my busy schedule so I opted for three 12 week long classes which means every 3 or 4 days I have to be in each forum making posts. Every weekend a paper is due in each class. Right now I'm posting every day to make sure I stay on top of things but I imagine that will ease up as I settle in to it.

I do have a fourth class which is the 6 week fast format, that starts in May. So May will be challenging for me. I thought this way I could start "slow" with only 3 courses, and settle into the routine. Then in May when I'm used to the system, the fourth course adds on, I have my full four course load, and finish off the quarter.

Probably a good idea for your sake and everyone else's too since everyone else has to read all those posts! After the first post on a topic, I used to leave one or two days between posts to see if others made the points that I wanted to make. If not then I posted my thoughts and if others did make those points, then I posted in reply to the posts I felt most strongly about. That saved me some time but did allow me to add what I felt was important information to the discussion. What I used to feel I got the most out of was people's experiences related to the postings by others. That was especially true if it was a response to one of my postings and someone either talked of an experience that agreed with my thoughts or one that disagreed with my opinions. It was great fun and educational too. I loved the discussion boards. I have to say though that everyone always made their points in a courteous fashion so they didn't hurt other's feelings. Maybe I was just lucky but I think most people do know to be considerate in their disagreements and do so without knocking someone else down. So it worked well in my experience.

I imagine I'll ease up on all the posting as time goes on. For example in the English class everybody posted their drafts in the forums and we are required to comment on at least 2 of them. I was good and only commented on 2 - no more. I'll wait and let others comment on the rest. But if a few days go by and nobody else comments, I think it would be cruel to just let those remaining people sit there without any comments at all, so I'll help out.

Yes, I know what you mean. Let's hope that there are a few of you in the class who are as conscientious and will do the same. That way several of you can share that responsibility.It is nice if everyone feels included in discussions.
I remember a couple of times when I made what I thought was a new take on the subject and then was surprised when nobody commented. I was never sure if they disagreed and just didn't want to say so or if they just didn't have time to comment at that point and then when they had time we were on to a new topic. Otherwise it didn't bother me but I would have felt left out if I had had many posts that weren't commented on.

In my last 2 classes, our teacher presents 2 general topics each week and we are supposed to talk about them. One thing I've noticed in my classes is that only certain people (I'm one of them) will start a discussion topic, so if we don't start the discussion early in the week, there won't be much time for discussion.

Julie

I've noticed several things in terms of forum posting. I have 3 classes - two organizational classes and one English class. In all 3 we had a HUGE amount of "introductory" posts at the beginning where everybody was chiming in furiously. So I was nervous that the all-day-every-day volume would kill me. That did calm down. So that is good.

Each class has the teach post a few "though provoking" threads at the beginning of the week. We're then supposed to respond and then also respond to each other's responses. So we are NOT supposed to make our own threads.

The English class has fewer members and also they aren't nearly as talkative. The two Org classes have many more members and they are very talkative. Also we're talking about cool ethical issues involving employees and coworkers so the topics are fascinating. So on one hand I was a little disappointed by the English class being less talkative, after the rush of high volume typing in the beginning. But really, it's still a good volume there, and it's a lot of conversation in the other two. So while it might seem less than the mile-a-minute of the beginning intros, it is a very healthy amount of posting and far more than you'd get in an in-person class in terms of fascinating discussion. It's there all day every day, there is always something new being added. So this definitely "takes more time" in that sense than an in person class would.

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