Please respond to the post below…..NO CITATIONS.NO REFERENCES…..200 word minimum.
Online learning communities pave the way for social interaction via tools deemed basic in our contemporary world such as the internet and the computer. As a student, I plan on creating academic/work associations with students (and maybe professors) with similar goals, or even going down similar roads. But using an online platform, it’s often hard to self-motivate or to keep with personal goals. This is because there is no physical interaction between peers/colleagues, instead we are limited to virtual interactions.
An article by Elizabeth Stacey speaks of something called “collaborative learning” which is an interesting way of wording networking or online learning. The article states that collaborative learning in online communities, through facilitation of knowledge and support, contributed greatly to student success. If students, such as ourselves, are enrolled in an online course of interest to us all, then we create a support system and push each other, either directly or indirectly, to perform better and thus, succeed. The professor heading these virtual classroom’s are the main facilitators of the exchange of information, as they provide the setting and the subject matter around which the courses center around.
The purpose of networking is growth. Attending meetings and events relevant to the industry would help in creating contacts and meeting new people who could potentially offer us work opportunities in the future. Attending such events could also provide perspective from a different viewpoint, helping us fully grasp what could be realistic expectations in our chosen fields. Here we have the opportunity to either stick to our initial goals or to change them, depending on what we are able to learn from these information sessions.