A lot of first-time online students have a bit of anxiety and nervousness surrounding their first online classroom experience.  I wanted to compile some do’s and don’ts for those of you who may be new to this!

I did a bit of crowdsourcing for this post… thanks to the awesome folks from the AMU Facebook page for their awesome insight!

Without keeping you waiting any longer, here’s my top 10 list of online classroom fails (as shared with me by real, live online students!):

1. Cursing or ranting in a discussion post.
2. Improper use of grammar.
3. Failure to use spell check.
4. THE USE OF ALL CAPS.
5. Not citing your work, “borrowing” from classmates’ posts.
6. Failing to proof-read your post before submitting.
7. Attacking classmates and/or their opinions or beliefs.
8. Improperly using the copy/paste function from Word (resulting in a bunch of code mumbo jumbo before your actual post).
9. Scrutinizing classmates’ work instead of constructively contributing to discussion.
10. Being boisterous and presumptuous.

Want to read more? Check out the thread here!

By N. Cooper

By: Matt See

While weeding through almost six and a half hours worth of Super Bowl pregame analysis this past Sunday, I came across something quite interesting.

One of the networks was breaking down the ultimate player for various football positions. Say for instance the quarterback. The would use the field vision of Peyton Manning, Joe Montana’s arm, Aaron Rodgers’ heart, Ben Rothlisberger’s tenacity and possibly Steve Young’s legs.

This got me to thinking. If you could piece together the “Ultimate Professor” what would they be made of? Sound off in the comments below and let us know what would make up your “Ultimate Professor?”

Educators have long noted that one of the best ways to learn something is to teach it to someone else. Remember your seventh-grade presentation on Costa Rica? By teaching to the rest of the class, your teacher hoped you would gain even more from the assignment. You can apply the same principle today by sharing your newly learned skills and knowledge with others.

Start by translating the information into your own words. This process alone helps solidify new knowledge in your brain. Next, find some way to share what you’ve learned. Some ideas include writing a blog post, creating a podcast or participating in a group discussion.

(source: About.com)

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Answer: not much.

But alas, fear not, dear readers…  I do know of a few things that rival Justin Bieber on the coolness scale.

And it just so happens that you’re in luck, because I plan on sharing them with you.

Below, you’ll find a list of social media and online tools that will enrich your online learning experience (I’m sorry, they won’t give you Bieber Fever) and encourage you to learn collaboratively both with your peers, as well as with your instructors.  I encourage you to share any tools or pointers you may have for using social media in education by commenting on my post – I’d love to hear your two cents!

So, without further ado:

1. Slide Share: Upload and share your PowerPoint & Keynote presentations, Word & PDF documents and professional videos on SlideShare. Add audio to make a webinar. Capture leads with your presentations.
2. DropBox: Put your files into your Dropbox on one computer, and they’ll be instantly available on any of your other computers that you’ve installed Dropbox on.  Because a copy of your files are stored on Dropbox’s secure servers, you can also access them from any computer or mobile device using the Dropbox website.
3. You Tube: Use You Tube to browse hundreds of educational videos.  When in doubt, just search!
4. Chegg: Don’t want to buy your textbooks? Rent them!
5. Diigo: Diigo is two services in one — it is a research and collaborative research tool on the one hand, and a knowledge-sharing community and social content site on the other.  You can add a browser plug-in to use sticky notes, on-screen hiliting, and even more.

Do you have other applications or tools to add to this list? Please feel free to leave comments!