Your Discussion Board Responses and Online Classes - What Do You Have to Know?
So, you are enrolled in this online classroom and very often you are required to go check what's going on with the other other colleagues and how they are participating in the class. You are also required to participate in the virtual or online classroom and to do this, you must focus on your forum participation and how or what you can contribute. Online classes are challenging in the sense you do not have direct face to face interaction with colleagues.However, you do have facetime and other virtual interaction and video conferencing tools that will help you to understand or gauge the responses of your colleagues online. It is very important for you to understand colleague or other classmate responses as then you are able to respond correctly. Online classes are usually a lot about discussions and discussion forums and class participants discuss coursework issues online. These online group discussions and forums or blackboard responses and meetings can be based on certain topics relevant to the course, or could be general discussions on a topic or could be about feedback on class and participation.
Usually online classes have blackboard responses and blackboard participation, and students can leave messages and also respond to others through the virtual classroom and virtual participation. Online classes and courses usually have extensive discussion forums and a lot of grading tend to depend on your responses on these forums. Usually someone will initiate a discussion thread and another person follows or responds and there is this ongoing discussion that goes on. Virtual discussions are very flexible, you can login and post anytime and anywhere and this creates a ripple effect as others also join in and there there are sometimes hundreds of responses. In virtual classrooms, you are scored according to your responses and the feedback from your colleagues is usually invaluable,Online classrooms also have other features such as posts, messages, discussions, group participation, individual opinion pieces and other write ups that you can contribute. Your grades depend more on your participation and contribution rather than your knowledge and intellectual ability, Although online tutors do note what you are saying and how often you are contributing to the class and all these factors are considered during the grading process. Online discussions and participation sometime may involve video conferencing and video discussion and participation and participants in a virtual classroom may participate in real-time discussion through video conferencing procedures and can contribute to the discussion and forums from any part of the world. Usually there is a lot of flexibility in the participation and discussion process, simply because these online programs and courses are meant for professionals and business executives who may participate anytime from different parts of the world. The flexibility of the virtual programs help in the learning process and learners are able to maintain discipline and continued contribution by regular real-time meetings with tutor or online supervisor.
Online classrooms are virtually open to anyone who needs to enroll in a relevant program. Some online programs and courses do require test scores such as GMAT and GRE, but mostly online courses are open to everyone and some online courses are even free and you can easily enrol in these and start your classes. Some courses are flexible, you can log in begin classes anytime and get off and get back anytime, there is no time limit to taking courses. There are also certain courses and programs that will require you to participate in quizzes or Q&A sessions. There are other courses that will require you to participate in discussion sessions or forums. The discussion sessions require regular participation from students and researchers. The quizzes usually have more flexible time of completion although some may have deadlines or won't allow you to explore the next levels until you complete certain courses and take quizzes or answer some questions or participate in a few discussion forums.
If you are logging in from your home computer or office computer for these online classes, you must maintain some privacy and also in order to participate in online classroom discussions, you will require your own space, which is mandatory if you need to respond quickly and regularly to your online classmates and colleagues without too many distractions. While enrolling in a virtual class or program, you must determine whether you have the right kind of home or office situation that will allow you to participate in such programs. Enrolling in such programs will help your career, because you will learn new concepts and new approaches to work or management or some other subject or topic, so with the learning you will grow professionally and personally. These courses are as helpful in personal development as these are helpful in professional development.
It is necessary to remember that during all discussions you have to maintain decorum and provide the most succinct and the most relevant, precise and appropriate responses. This is because in the online scenario, space will be limited. You will have only limited time and space within which to provide your responses, opinion or analysis, so you will have to be economical with your time and words and more precise responses will also help get you good grades as long drawn responses will be difficult to assess or grade. Remember that your supervisor will be assessing or grading several or several hundred responses, of your colleagues and so it is always advisable to keep your response length optimum as too short a response would be dismissed as not in-depth and too long responses will be seen as a waste of time and people may not even read rambling responses that do not make much sense.
Discussion forums may also be a part of your regular University coursework and Universities are increasingly shifting to the online format to provide more flexibility to the student population so that they can work from anywhere and at anytime. To know more about how you can learn to write responses for your online discussion forums, become a member of free writing and research help places like EssayForum.com.