I don't have any suggestions at all. Seriously, it sounds like you really know what you want and how you are going to get it. It's really admirable!
Before I got promoted to a senior position, our boss rated me very low in the technical category. He said that I need a lot of improvement since I am handling a unit that deals with technical support. Since I cannot go to school anymore, I enrolled in a certification course for technical subjects in online classes. I regularly studied by logging on and being diligent particularly with the exams. After 3 months, I passed the online course and I was promoted the following year. College undergraduates or new graduates now have the opportunity to enhance their bio with certification courses that would help them get promoted or get a job.
I'm currently doing something similar. I want to do the work on our cabin. The means being able to do the electric. I'm taking a course to get certified as an electrician. I don't see me getting it done in 3 months, though. I'm hoping to be able to devote some real time to it soon, and maybe finish in 5 or 6 months.
My boss didn't pressure me on my online studies. He would always ask me about it and would tell me to take my time. Online classes is much different from the traditional school where there is a fixed schedule. What's good in online classes is you can choose your own schedule and have control of your time. But one thing I noticed is the practicum. You need to be serious in the exercises because those exercises would give you the insight of what you have learned.
no kidding! I get 3 tries with each test. I took the test for my current lesson so I could see what kind of questions I was looking at. I'm learning how to handle super dangerous electricity. I could easily go through all the tests like that, look up the answers, and move on. But I realize how important it is to read ALL of it. So that I won't die. If I had done this 20 years ago, I would have cheated the entire way, through.
I haven't signed up for it yet but am thinking of taking the Hillsdale College course on the Constitution.
I had forgotten about Universal Class. I've taken a few classes through Universal Class before, which were good for CEU credits, although they are not accredited courses. They were well done, and useful. Not free, however. They have classes covering a lot of topics. I taught a class through Universal Class once too, several years ago.
This is a good thread and, since it hasn't been posted to in six years, I think there's a good chance that many of our active members haven't come across it, but may have something to add. I just signed up for an online class to become a facilitator for an alcohol or addiction recovery program. Although I am neither an alcoholic nor addict, my wife is co-founder of a recovery program here in town that is doing very well, and they would like to be able to offer a wider variety of recovery programs, since Alcoholics Anonymous isn't the only one around. The course uses the open-source Moodle platform as a classroom. I am waiting for my book to arrive before actually starting the course, which will be at my own pace, albeit with a 150-day window. When educational courses, classes, degrees, and colleges are discussed, there are two general considerations. Are you looking for an education or for a paper that you need to advance your career? Too often, from what I have seen, even nationally accredited college and university programs offer little more than the paper. At our ages, while not all of us have abandoned considerations of a career, we might be more willing to take a class for the purposes of learning something rather than solely for advancement in our careers. Maybe not. I suppose it's reasonable for someone to decide they've already learned everything they need to know. One of my brothers takes pride in the fact that he hasn't read a book since he completed his Master's Degree, yet he's led a good life. Do you know of any good sources for online learning?
The first distance learning courses I took, before it was widely popular, was a fairly good experience. The second, though, didn't turn out as well: they managed to lose one of my mail-in assignments, I couldn't afford to have my time extended, and I lost my material when my apartment flooded (water damage to books, and desktop info when computer blew out due to mold). So after putting in approximately 3 years of hard work and tuition, I couldn't graduate because I was unable to complete that one course.
Several months ago, I enrolled in online courses to become a facilitator for an addiction recovery program called SMART Recovery, mostly to add a non-12-step program to those offered through my wife's recovery center. There were two courses, both conducted through Moodle, which I am familiar with, and I had 180 days to complete them. That was about 170 days ago and, due to the procrastination that I have come to know and love, I just started them yesterday morning. I was up until 7:00 a.m. this morning, completing the longer course. After sleeping for a few hours, I finished the second one this afternoon. They were a combination of texts, slides, video, fill-in-the-blank quizzes, and multiple-choice tests, including final exams. They weren't particularly easy either. Although I had the books, finding the answers in the books, if I hadn't been paying attention to the course presentations, would have been difficult, although possible, I suppose, because I don't think the exams were timed. That's where I've been the past couple of days, completing a 180 day course in two.
. As a person who ended a 52 year teaching career Dec. 2019, ranging from high school to university grad school teaching and research, I'm saddened by what I'm afraid I'm seeing: classroom teaching will be a thing of the past in the not too distant future. Personally I miss my regular meetings with rooms full of students. This trend is not restricted to education. Many of the 'Working from Homers' will not return to the office after the pandemic is over (and yes, it will be over some time). Nothing new about this: my elder son has been 'working from home' for decades trouble shooting problems that corporations have with their IT, and this trend was increasing before the pandemic. Back to my teaching; my last 15 years were at the local two-year college teaching freshman English composition. Most of my assignments were “hybrid” classes, meaning that the classes meet only half as much as regular classes. The rest was online. The college also offers 100% online classes. On the brighter side of this, I have used online classes myself. I refurbished my two years of college Russian before wife and I did our Russian cruise, and I was able to read modern Greek well enough to read the billboards and newspaper headlines from a month of online lessons.
I think it takes a lot of self motivation to take an online course which I have in short supply at my age, however when younger and going after a goal, I believe I could do it. In a way it’s like studying and doing homework at home after attending classes in person. You do what needs to be done to complete your goal. I have no goals at the present time except to wake up the next morning.
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