Online Courses

Find for yourself a strategy to review your plan for participation in the online business courses. In many ways a synchronous course is learner-centered, and the responsibility for connecting to the course and initiating communication with the facilitator and other participants is yours.

As other learners join the business course, send them notes or participate in chat room discussions. It is the equivalent of getting to know your classmates at the start of a classroom course when you connect with people online. You may also greet the facilitator and ask questions about the topic. As you use the capabilities of the software to communicate, you will become comfortable and the software will tend to fade into the background, allowing you to concentrate fully on the course presentations and activities. This is identical to driving a car. The first few times behind the wheel you are so focused on the controls such as steering, acceleration, and braking that it is difficult to pay attention to other vehicles on the road. As you gain experience in driving, your focus on the controls shifts to the background and you are able to give most of your attention to what is happening on the other side of the windshield. One recommendation that was made in the previous chapter to help you quickly move to this level of comfort with the synchronous software is to attend a demonstration by the vendor of the software you will be using. These are often available on the vendor's Web site. Next, let us examine the specific capabilities of synchronous software that allow you to communicate with the facilitator and co-participants.

As indicated previously, at this point you may have installed synchronous software on your computer and logged in to a Web site to access the online business courses. Once you are in the course, the window that provides the view of the business course content also contains controls that allow you to interact with the facilitator and other participants.

Next, let's examine ways you may communicate with other participants in the online business course. Some functions include identifying who is in the course; private text messaging; audio capability; chat rooms; whiteboard paint tools; whiteboard text tool; bulletin boards; and instant messaging. Most synchronous software displays a list of the people logged into the online business courses with icons that look like a little face next to each name.