Monday, February 20, 2006

Online is THE way to do school

At least the second (or third, or whatever) time around.

I am taking a class through New Hampshire Technical Institute (New Hampshire Community Technical College's Concord campus). While the class has obligatory meetings on Saturday morning, the assignments and tests can all be handled online. Every week we have a quiz that must be completed by midnight Friday night. We also have homework, from the text book, that can be turned in online. This week, in addition to the homework and quiz, we had a midterm that we needed to complete before Monday, the 27th.

All I can say is BRING IT ON!

At first I was concerned about having so much to take care of this week. We don't have a class meeting on the 25th, so I could have waited until then to do some of the work. However, I didn't want to put it off in case I ran into any issues.

No issues AT ALL. I finished the homework and the quiz Saturday evening. Today, I took the exam. One of the great things about online quizes and exams is that they are open book, AND you get to see how you did on the spot. With the quizes, there is a time limit (typically an hour), so you should kind of know the material since you don't have tons of time to go and look it up. However, the midterm was not timed. And, we could print the questions off before actually sitting down to take the test. So, I printed the questions and sat in a very comfy chair with my graded quizes. Most of the questions were taken directly from the previous quizes. And, yes, I totally aced the thing when I submitted my answers this afternoon.

Don't get me wrong, I am learning the material. But, the online thing probably wouldn't work out for everyone. Students who don't have a couple of hundred credits already under the belt might not be flourish in the self-driven environment.

I suspect that the courses that I'll be taking at my next school, Granite State College, will be a bit more difficult. They will be almost wholy online. My final exam for my current class has to be completed the weekend that I start my first class at GSC. Should be a good time, no?

1 comment:

briwei said...

Party on! Just keep reminding yourself why you are doing it and all will be well. :)