Hey Samantha
Hey, how are you doing?
Not bad. Yourself?
I'm good.
Great! That''s good to hear. Let's get started. So hello everybody um i'm David I'm a Digital Content Creator here at the
Lifeathumber team and this is our We Got You Live series where we answer your big questions.
And today i'm joined by Samantha Ruth, and she is actually doing her entire semester
from her home country of Indonesia with a time difference of 12 hours so that kind of shows
kind of how important it is for um for it is to understand our digital learning tips, so thanks for
joining us today. Tell us a little bit about yourself. Yeah um so hi everyone my name
is Samantha. I'm in my third year of digital business management at the lakeshore campus
and I am a peer tutor and also recently a peer digital learning coach with the PALS team.
All right that's great so let's get started. Um, I'm sorry I don't think i mentioned this
right off the bat but today we we are talking about what is a digital learning coach?
So let's just let's start it uh let's get straight into it. So Samantha, what is a digital learning coach?
Yeah so a digital learning coach is essentially a tutor or a coach that specifically helps with digital learning tips
and it's a new thing that PALS just launched around mid-October.
Yeah it's great yeah. So it's quite quite a new thing. So is it uh completely virtual?
Yeah we do meet students online.
Yeah and that's great for
international students like yourself who can
both help students you know in very different time zones so you know they don't have to be you
know up at night just to get assistance which you know i know sleep is a big um important aspect of
learning, so it'd be ironic if
we force them to uh stay awake in order to learn better right yeah so where can folks
um can folks uh sign up for an appointment online? Yeah so if you guys want to meet with a digital
learning coach what you can do is sign up for an upswing account and i believe the Lifeathumber
team has it on their link in their bio and you just have to find the lesson that is the DOL 100
digital online learning 100 and then you can choose a time and a tutor that you want to meet.
For sure yeah, all all the links we mentioned will be in a bio and if you have any questions
as always feel free to reach out. And so when they make an appointment what's an appointment like?
So the appointments are very casual we get to know each other and we ask if the student is struggling
in something specific and if they are, we help them, we just kind of guide them through whatever
they're facing with their online learning. But if they don't want or they don't have any specific
questions we just give them general tips on how to make the most out of their online learning
yeah it's interesting because I'm actually um a peer tutor myself or some specific courses
and and it's just it's interesting how um you know a coach helps you with more
general uh learning stuff which is you know in some sense just as important uh to kind of
understand right especially because you know once you're finished school um you know there's always
more to learn so you know almost learning how to learn is it's just as important as
learning your specific subjects. Right, exactly.
Yeah. So um how how long are the appointments typically?
You can book the sessions in half an hour increments so they run from usually half
an hour long or you can do an hour long and I've also had students come to me
before booking sessions that are even an hour and a half long so it's completely up to you.
Yeah and is there a limit on how much students can book? Yeah so on upswing you are allowed for four
hours per week - the three hours being tutoring for your core or your elected classes and then the one
hour being the digital online learning. Great yeah, so that's a good thing to keep keep in mind for
sure. And is there any cost associated with making an appointment?
No it's completely free.
And i think that's uh you know usually a a big selling point for uh for most students for sure.
yeah for sure. And is it - who can make an appointment with a digital learning coach?
Is it available to all students? Yeah so it is available to all students whether you are
studying at Lakeshore or whether you are a student from North or even a student at Guelph-Humber
whether you're a domestic or international student um full-time part-time continuing education
anyone with an N number essentially if you have a student id and a humber number
you will be um you're allowed to sign up for a data learning coach and we actually have digital
learning coaches in different time zones such as myself to accommodate different student schedules.
Yeah and as I said before I think that's definitely important to uh to try and work with
what's with students' schedules for sure. And so you mentioned this was a relatively new thing,
uh why was the learning coaches just established? Yeah so ever since
we moved our learning to like mostly online I know a lot of programs are doing their classes
mostly virtually such as my program um we kept hearing that students were having a hard time
just adjusting to online learning because you know we've all never experienced this before this is
new to all of us so i know a lot of students were having a hard time, including myself and we here at
PALS we want to help you as best as we can so this role was established.
Yeah for sure I myself,
I'm in the film and television program so a lot of my courses were hands-on and so you know last year
we moved everything online. We went to you know especially in the beginning it was 100%
online and so um especially being in the in being in the middle of term um
it is very abrupt, so definitely having um a resource to kind of help, to help students to adapt
from you know in-person classes to um online is something that that was that was that valuable
for sure and so I'm really glad that these students have it now. Yeah.
So how has virtual learning been been for you as a student yourself ?
Yeah um it's been fairly difficult like I said before all of my classes are now running virtually.
Especially the fact that i'm in a program such as digital business. Um it's been difficult for sure
just having to adjust to you know being in class and then now we're just doing everything through
out screens, and it's also hard to just focus on like three hour long lectures obviously. Um,
and it's also very difficult for me with the time zone difference because I like I said I have the
12 hour time so difference so I have my classes mostly at night and sometimes it runs to like
you know five in the morning six in the morning so i have to get up for those which is not fun
but I've made sure to just kind of take my own advice and follow tips from PALS as well.
For sure and um so yeah and so um
so to kind of wrap up today's live um uh do you have any kind of final tips for viewers uh
and listeners in general, like maybe what they could do with their specific study area?
Yeah for sure, um we've actually prepared three quick tips from PALS here to just kind of make
the most out of your online learning. The first one being watch your body posture. It's really
important because you know, we're looking at our screen for like hours and hours in our day
and this can take a strain towards your body um I know it's really tempting to just watch your
lectures or do your work either on your couch or on your bed, I know I've been tempted to do that
myself like i just want to roll over and watch my lectures in my bed but this will take a strain on
your back and your body so it's really important to try to sit down on an actual desk and chair
even if it's not like a fancy like um working spot just a simple designed chair would do. And the
recommended guideline is to sit 90 degrees and um just to avoid strain and to for you to avoid
slouching and your knees elbows and hips will really thank you for this. And the next step is to
just dim the brightness of your screens, whatever it is um whether it's your computer your phone
your iPad, whatever you're learning on, um because we're on our screens all day your eye might take
some fatigue and it's important to just position your monitor to eliminate glare from light sources.
So to help with this avoid sitting with your back facing a sunny window um because too much
eyes, sorry too much light entering your eyes can actually contribute to eye strain and fatigue.
So it's important to take care of our physical body whether it's your back, or your eyes. And the
last thing is what we like to call the 20-20-20 rule, so it's 20 three times. Um what this rule
means is that every 20 minutes you look away 20 feet for 20 seconds so this 20-20-20 rule has
helped me personally because this just reminds me to take a break every time I'm you know doing
work or I'm writing a paper or something just so I'm not going for like hours on end and tiring
out myself. Um so this could be just as simple as taking 20 seconds to get up and do a stretch
or get some water to drink just hydrate yourself or if you're lucky enough to like live across a
park or you have a nice backyard, don't forget to like look out to your greeneries - just take
20 seconds out of your day um every 20 minutes and just you know give yourself
a break and give yourself time to relax. Yeah and i think that the 20
minutes it is also a good kind of time gap to try and you know focus your attention on on studying
and then, you know right it's always nice to have an an excuse to take a quick break instead of
um you know you know i think you have to you know try and focus for like one or three hours
straight on one subject and you know burn out at some point as well.
Yeah for sure yeah yeah those were great tip so thanks for going live with us.
We can take a minute to look through any questions that folks might have from in the comments
Um I'm not sure if you're able to see the comments or not yourself but uh
yeah i can
Okay. Let's go back to the... oh we had a lot of engagement today!
Uh i don't know if I'm just going to circles or i think we had one question um ...
someone was excited to learn about the digital learning coaches so
hope we gave you some great great information uh okay so one question
is do you have online learning this specifically for students with a similar time zone difference?
You know you you mentioned a bit but like do you have any kind of more specific tips?
Sorry, you still... Yes, I'm here.
Yeah, so uh do do you have any tips for students in similar time zone differences specifically ?
Yeah for sure um like I said a lot of my classes are like at night and it's hard for me
to sometimes keep up um what I can recommend and what I've been doing is I've been sending messages
to my professor and just telling them my situation that I'm in a completely different time zone and
it might be hard for me to attend my classes so most of my professors have actually been really
really accommodating, and they've been posting recordings for me, or like for the whole class
um so most of our lectures are on blackboard collaborate so they usually make the lectures
available the next day or two so I can watch it at any time, so my lectures are mostly not synchronous
which is really nice. And um what i can recommend is um finding someone who is in a similar time
zone whether it's a digital learning coach whether it's someone from your program and just kind of
getting together virtually and creating a study group online just so you're keeping, keeping each
other accountable with your similar time zones. Yeah yeah, those are both great tips because uh
I think, you know instructors, um you know, are very open to being accommodating um especially given
you know - yeah for sure - we've been here yeah yeah we've kind of been you know in a virtual
learning environment for you know for almost half a year now and I think
some people might still be getting used to it but I think instructors are still very um open to
accommodating the fact that you know this is still very uh unusual time for people so yeah
so regardless of what issues you're having, don't be afraid to reach out.
right, and that's also why we have um a role such as the digital learning coach because
we're here to help you guys. Yeah and and I like the the part about um reaching out to
potentially a classmate because i think connecting with your... with your peers is is an important thing
to try and do as well you know we're virtual and a part of it... that doesn't mean you know
um you know learning from other others should be... should not be diminished
in this time as well so I think you know how having a a study buddy is a great tip as well.
Yeah for sure. And so before we wrap up, do you have any additional comments for folks?
Maybe I'll just look real quick for any other questions... Yeah for sure uh so we know it's hard
and you know we're all kind of in the same boat here whether you're still in Canada or you're home
like I am right now with a time difference and whatever program you're in um you know parts of
your learning or all of your learning really are going to be virtual, so we know it takes
time to adjust to a new thing a completely new thing for every one of us and we know it might
be difficult but just know that you know you're not the only one going through this we're all
kind of in the same boat, and don't hesitate to always reach out that's why roles such as the
digital learning coach was established for us to help you guys get better at your online learning.
Right, great! And so thank you so much for for sharing all of your tips and what you do as
a digital learning coach today um yeah thank you so much for having me.
No problem! If anyone has any questions or ideas they would like answered feel free to send us a message and
and it might be on next topic so um stay safe out there and i'll see you all at the next one. Bye!