Utilizing Online Tools from Your Online College

With advances in technology being made constantly and online education becoming a more popular form of learning, many tools are available online for students to take advantage of and make the most out of his or her online learning experience.

As a part of any online course, students will use a Learning Management Systems (LMS) like Blackboard or eCollege which is designed to present all of the information required for a specific course. The LMS that you will use will vary depending on the school, but they all have similar features and functions and will act as the information center for your course. It is important that you become familiar with your LMS and all of the resources and tools available.

Text chats through instant messaging systems is an effective online tool that you as a student can use to communicate with instructors and other classmates in real-time, allowing you to type in your responses and input. Some popular instant messaging systems are Skype, AIM, Google Chat/Talk and Yahoo Messenger. Social media tools, like Twitter and Facebook can also be used for text chat discussions. Multimedia will probably play a major role in your courses and you should be prepared to view slideshows and video presentations of lectures and other content. Your instructors may use podcasts and other types of audio recordings, which will allow you to playback material as many times as you need for review. You can become familiar with multimedia tools with sources like YouTube’s Education Channel, Slideshare which is a tool for posting presentations online, and The Education Podcast Network, a good resource for audio recordings.

Online Interaction

Online collaboration is possible with many programs available to allow students to interact with each other on projects and assignments. As a student, you can participate in group calls which will enable you to communicate in real-time with multiple classmates in order to work on team assignments and for study group sessions. Skype is an online application that features text, audio and video capabilities and is a helpful tool for conference calls. Another application, TinyChat, allows users to set up instant chat rooms online. OoVoo is a free video chat system which can be downloaded to your computer. Google+ recently launched an application called the Hangouts feature which includes shared video and audio. Students can use virtual offices or web conferencing systems as another collaboration tool for their online courses. Virtual offices include call features and real-time interaction functions like whiteboards and file uploads, allowing you to coordinate projects and other assignments with classmates. Programs like AnyMeeting, let you invite your classmates to join an online meeting space with features such as screen sharing, six way video conferencing and the ability to record your meetings.

With online courses, collaborative writing can be a challenge to organize but there are many online tools and programs that make this task easier. GoogleDocs has many functions some of which include allowing you to create, edit and upload your documents, spreadsheets and presentations quickly. You can invite other classmates to view your files and make changes together, in real-time and at different times. Conceptboard is another program that lets you work on documents and virtual whiteboards with other classmates. You can sketch freehand, collect ideas, and integrate screenshots, memos and documents.

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