My Online Classmates: Thoughts and Interactions
Posted by Jeff Davis on March 16th, 2009
It has been my experience that during my online learning at the University of Phoenix, fellow classmates were always helpful, courteous, dedicated, and as much a part of the learning experience as the course itself in this type of environment. In regards to being courteous and professional, there was rarely an incident involving inappropriate behavior in my online classes, unlike a traditional classroom which may allow time for “horseplay” or for things other than just learning. It has been my experience that an online school is more for those who are serious about learning and being able to quickly apply their new knowledge and skills immediately in their respective career fields. Maybe that is why online schools seem to appeal more to an older crowd. From what I can recall, most of my fellow students held full-time jobs and were experienced in their career fields whereas my experience with a more traditional school was quite a bit younger and typically just out of high school and with little actual work experience. There just didn’t seem to be any time available for “having fun” like I did when I was going to a more traditional school. Of course that was 15 years ago!
In regards to being helpful, there were many occasions where I have learned an important skill or valuable information from what my other classmates had shared with the class. In this type of environment, everyone must participate since it’s a required part of the grade. This was not my experience during attendance of a traditional school. In my traditional school, many students did not participate and that is why I think it hinders the opportunity for growth. In a full participation type of setting, you can gain many helpful tips and tricks that can help you progress in your career field. In regards to being dedicated, I have never worked on a team in my online classes where we accomplished anything less than satisfactory. Most of my team experiences were very positive and very productive in terms of cohesion, overcoming diversity, accomplishing tasks, and getting assignments turned in on time.
I was able to interact with other students in my online courses very easily by email, chat, or telephone. Working in a team environment gave us an even broader range of tools to utilize in order to hold productive team meetings and such. Some of the tools that we used to effectively communicate were email, telephone, instant messengers such as Yahoo or Microsoft, and even more recently, Skype. All of these were very effective in helping to meet our overall goals. Most of the time, the tool used depended on the assignment involved. Now that I am attending school online once again, while working on my Master’s degree, it seems that the most effective communication tool used among the learning teams is probably Skype.
