Hello everyone, my name is Angelica Dourno and I would like to share with you a few
things that worked for me in the last weeks with online lectures.
First of all, one of the most important things is to have
a daily schedule, like a plan to follow that should include the preparation
time, the lecture times, the time you will spend with your assignments,
your reading time, and that kind of things.
The preparation time is crucial, since it's there where you have
an idea of how the lecture will be like and also to write down your questions
especially if you're an international student. In lectures, I like to use or
make the most of the tool we're using. Like in zoom, we have this option to
raise our hand to ask a question and buttons yes or no to give a response to
a lecturer, and this makes the tutoring or the class very
interactive in an organised way. For the lectures, I like to dress
properly as if I'm going to a face-to-face class. Although this
might sound irrelevant, it actually helps you to create a proper environment
or appropriate atmosphere so you can focus on what you're doing at that
time, because when we are working or studying in our own places we tend
to be more relaxed. By saying that, I would like to add that having an
organised and tidy, quiet place also helps you in the learning process.
Last but not least, try to have a healthy lifestyle, especially in this
time of isolation, we avoid stress and can keep having a great learning
experience. I write out all my question and try to look at photo social online
first, and if I did not still understand the concept or feel familiar with the
background, I try to reach out to the lecturer and tutor during the
concentration hour in the same way and as soon as possible, so I would not have
trouble attending the next lecture without having a clear understanding of
the previous one. I also fight hard to keep my personal and working
space separately at home. I try to set out a new, comfortable study area especially
far from my bedroom and try to follow my normal schedule as I was going to the
campus. I actually found it easier to listen to the recordings as opposed to
face-to-face lectures. That's because there are some really helpful functions
imbedded in the lecture capture. For example, I could pause and go back to
previous slides where I didn't understand and I could adjust the speed
to however suitable for me, especially when the teachers speak very
fast, that function is a such a relief. Also, there's the transcript function
that shows the text version of the recording, so we can simply click on a
sentence to listen to that particular part. As an English as a second language
learner, I think it's quite useful because not only did I understand the
lectures better but I could also learn some new vocabulary and expressions. On
the negative side though, it did take much more time to go through a complete
lecture, but I think it is worth it.