As I commented in my last entry, I've had periods of study during a lot of my adult life and studied full-time, part-time and recently online. Although I personally really enjoy my online courses, I think it is realistic to note some of the potential problems of online study.
First, I have to be really organized to study online. I can think of a thousand things that I need to do rather than sit down and start my course, and all of them I could give a higher priority than studying. I therefore have to be sure that this is what I need to do now, and nothing else.
Secondly, I have to make myself concentrate very deeply for the first five minutes. To begin with, I could be very easily distracted from my studies, so I have to develop tunnel vision in order to start the process off. Once I start to study and settle down into a topic, I find that I become very absorbed and don't want to notice what is happening round me.
Thirdly, I have to be sure and schedule study time. This is related to my first point, but it's really about planning ahead. I do it by making myself get up early two mornings a week, and when I do this I feel so virtuous, my family get sick of me.
Studying my online courses has started me thinking about studying in general, and how and why I do it. I have done a lot of study during my life. I gained my bachelor's degree after school, graduating at the age of 22. I thought I had finished studying then, but almost immediately I took some marketing examinations, for an institute qualification, and I have to say I hated studying and working at the same time during this time.
In my 30's I studied for two master's degrees, one in computer science and one in education. I was working during the time I studied for both these degrees, lecturing in a British university. I really enjoyed studying during this period of my life, I was working in an environment that encouraged me to increase my qualifications, and I had my personal life well organized, allowing me to devote the necessary time to working on assignments and doing research.
It has now been around 15 years since I last did any formal study, and studying online has been a revelation. I thought that learning would be far more difficult as I am older, but because I can go back to texts and lectures, I find that I learn more thoroughly than I could through formal classroom lectures. I am motivated to do the work because I have some fairly short term gains in mind, and because each of my courses is modular, I can see what I have achieved and been rewarded for almost on a week by week basis.
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