What’s the big deal about online learning? 10 tips to motivate you to give it a go!

Learning online is becoming increasingly popular.  If you are hesitating though, consider these tips to motivate you to give it a try!

1. Learn at your own pace:  Like the students in our classes, some of us pick up new ideas and skills quickly, others more slowly.   Working online allows you the luxury of being able to set limits for yourself.  Avoid the pressure of having to compete with others.  Instead set challenges for yourself.  Monitor your own progress.  Set your own goals.
2. Learn as little or as much as you like:  With the freedom to set your own goals, comes the freedom to decide how much you dip into suggested readings or hands on ‘use’ of tools being demonstrated.   Online learning programs allow you to determine how much or how little you do.  Often the program will have a ‘minimum’ level suggested for participants to ‘complete’ but there is nothing to stop you exploring more deeply.   The more time you invest along the way, the greater will be the rewards you reap.
3. Learn with other like-minded people: As with any conferences or courses, online learning programs are bound to attract those with similar interests or similar goals.   The end result is that you can ‘learn’ collectively and collaboratively with others who, like you, are keen to explore and learn.   Being able to meet up with other like-minded people in cyberspace lends a special something to evolving relationships.   You’ll be surprised how ‘connected’ you come to feel toward your cyber buddies!
4. Be mentored by an expert: Being able to have a mentor guide you, help you and instruct you throughout your online learning is extremely powerful.  Think about the time you learned to drive a car.   Wasn’t it great to have the instructor sitting right there beside you?  Knowing that there was someone close by to prompt you and guide you was not only instructionally helpful but was really comforting.  The role of the mentor throughout your online learning program can be a key to expanding and extending your learning opportunity.
5. Learning by doing: There’s no better way to learn than by rolling your sleeves up and getting stuck ‘into’ it!  Active vs passive learning or more simply, learning by doing, is an amazingly powerful learning experience.   Consider how the students in our classes learn.  Are we really any different when it comes to learning new skills?
6. Learn anything, anywhere, anytime: How cool is it to be able to learn what you want, anywhere you like at absolutely any time of day.   Just imagine sitting in front of your PC/laptop/iPad, in your pyjamas, on your balcony, in the backyard, curled up in bed or in your favourite lounge chair late at night, early in the morning or on a Sunday afternoon.   Completing an online learning program allows you all of these luxuries.  You are your own boss!
7. Supportive, safe environment:  Participation in an online program allows you to interact within a closed environment.   Repeated interactions with others allow you to get to know other participants.   With familiarity comes confidence to question and ponder thoughts and ideas together.   Receiving supportive suggestions and advice from other participants allows group learning to occur.
8. Social Networking:  Using social networking platforms such as Twitter and Facebook as professional tools are great!   Both the immediacy and the collegiality that these platforms afford us to advance our professional learning and growth are truly profound.   An integral part of online learning programs is the use of social media.
9. Develop your Personal Learning Network: The luxury of learning with other like-minded people is that you get to know other participants.   The more interaction and collaboration between participants of any course establishes links.  Online learning provides an avenue to network in cyberspace.   As interactions continue and deepen, a sense of trust evolves.   This ‘atmosphere’ allow you the freedom to question and experiment in ways that you’d probably never considered possible before.   All these links, connections – people with whom you share and collaborate –  become the basis for your Personal Learning Network.
10. Empowering and enjoyable: Knowing that we are able to keep on learning at any stage of life is really a very empowering feeling.  Learning, exploring and discovering as a lifelong pursuit has to be one of the ‘best’ rewards life has to offer.   Enjoying that exhilarating feeling of success when you finally master a new skill is simply fantastic and highly enjoyable!

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