Online Courses

The online writing courses environment offers a great many advantages. Writing online courses can promote a sense of equality by granting each participant an equal voice. This may not be the case in traditional classrooms, where students may feel intimidated or shy about voicing opinions due to competition for “air time.” Also, the subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle influences of non-verbal cues are missing in online courses. Responses have a greater likelihood of being judged on the basis of their substance and merit rather than by the appearance of the person commenting. This non-visual courses atmosphere can be highly motivating, as well as liberating. Sharing information through active, ongoing dialogue and constructing knowledge through mutually-shared understandings all contribute to the development of a sense of writing courses community online.
                                 
However, online writing courses communicating may take some adjustment, especially if you are accustomed to a more teacher-centered, traditional approach to learning. In this section, typical new courses student difficulties are highlighted: “Did you get my email? Did you? Did you? Did you?”

The seeming immediacy of the writing courses online environment can be deceiving and lead to bad habits. For example, you may feel that you need to get immediate answers to questions or to emails. In the beginning some online courses students fear that if they don't get an immediate response from the instructor it means their email has been lost in cyberspace. These writing online courses students make the mistake of sending three or four messages a day asking instructors the same question: “Did you get my paper?” or “I need to know about this assignment right now.” This is not necessary the same question, you need to also trust the Internet.

Allow a reasonable amount of time for people to respond to your email, and give yourself the same leeway. Remember, the flexibility of online courses learning permits everyone to fit learning into their personal schedule. It is wise to wait 24 to 48 hours before sending another email message requesting the same information. Remember to consider time zone differences and also give time for reflection. Some people working at online courses may be logging onto the system at midnight or at 4:00 in the morning, and your writing courses instructor is not online 24 hours a day. He or she probably has a few courses hours each day scheduled to login and get emails, so you need to be patient. This also gives you permission to answer courses messages at a time which fits your schedule and outside activities.