I Love Online Learning!

When I first started exploring options for going back to school I was a little leery of online universities. I, as I'm sure others do, thought of them as "diploma mills". Even after talking with my extremely enthusiastic and determined admissions advisor I still really didn't know what to expect. Am I thrilled with my experience so far? Oh heck yes! I love the program, professionalism and dedication the staff as well as students exhibit. I feel much more connected to the school and my classmates that I did attending classes in the traditional manner. We interact all the time instead of just once a week for a couple of hours. I love the flexibility, especially when you throw in a laptop. If I feel like I will do better on a test sitting under a tree, then I can do so. I also like the fact that we still have traditional paper textbooks as we all need an electronic break occasionally. I mean I love computers, but one can start to go a little nuts staring at a LCD display for too long.

I also just thought about an aspect I hadn't considered before. I wonder if by not actually seeing a huge, intimidating building whenever we go to "class" or the library if it actually personalizes the experience more? In otherwords, logically I know we are all scattered around the country and Kaplan has a slew of people who work for them. In my mind, it's a very personal and small organization that helps me focus on my education. Interesting..

I think summer is here

Ok, so it's almost 90 degrees in Northern Illinois. Now, don't get me wrong; I like warm weather. Let me repeat, warm. Two days ago it was in the 70's with a nice, gentle breeze. Nighttime was cool; perfect for sleeping with the windows open. Now it's just hot. The breeze is still there, but it really doesn't help much. It also doesn't help that I hate air conditioning. I hate the cost, the dryness and feeling like I'm living in a bubble. After spending all winter with the house closed up I have to have doors and windows open! I get so excited when the time approaches that I can sit on the front porch and read. And then the inevitable happens, the first hot day that reminds me why I like spring and fall so much. Sigh....I guess everything is a trade-off. At least I don't have to wear 5 layers of clothes to walk outside to shovel a foot of snow.

Interesting

After a day of hanging out with my soon to be 3 year old nephew it is very nice to come home and do schoolwork. I am not sure I like the EBSCOhost interface we use to find our reading assignments. Maybe with practice I will come to find it useful. Right now I find it to be a bit un-user friendly. I also must find out how to keep it from italicizing every single word from the search in the HTML version of the articles. I noticed that using the PDF option results in a far more readable document. Unfortunately, that option is not available for all the articles. If I am unsuccessful in finding an answer I will simply copy everything into a Word document, hit Ctrl-A and undo all the italics.

Ok, rant over. See everyone Saturday evening!

Greetings Classmates!

Just a quick note to say hello and I'm really looking forward to this class. I think it is pretty cool that we are setting up blogs as part of our experience. I am pretty comfortable with computers, so if anyone wants help or just to vent feel free to give me a shout!

"See" you tomorrow night!