Jane's Story

A typical day in the life of an online student

Jane is a mother of two young children not yet in school. Jane completed her Bachelor of Arts 15 years ago. She has had an interest in natural remedies since the birth of her children and has seen the difference that these remedies have on her children. She wants to be able to contribute to the household income, but still be there for the children after school. Jane has recently returned to part-time work at the news agent. As her youngest starts pre-school next month she has decided to study to become a Naturopath and because she is an hour from the biggest city she can’t take on campus classes.

Fortunately, many of the subjects in her first year are of a theoretical nature, and can be taken online. Jane has decided to start off with two online subjects. She knows she has the option of taking on more classes in coming months as she gets back into the study mode.

Jane starts her study program most days by reading through discussion forum posts which have arrived via email overnight from other students studying her subjects. Jane posts some responses to some of the topics, and as a result, continues the debate and reflection. She is particularly interested in another student’s perspective, someone who appears to know a lot about the philosophy of natural medicine. She recommends a particular book to read.

After doing her posts, Jane makes a cup of coffee and sits back to watch and listen to a recorded lecture. Just like in a typical classroom, Jane can hear the tutor discuss various concepts, while viewing the power point presentation content on the screen. Her phone rings, so Jane pauses the presentation, and resumes after her call.

While in the Endeavour Online Learning system, Jane notices that her tutor is currently online, so shoots her an instant message about an upcoming online quiz she needs to complete. She receives an instant reply to her message and is reasonably confident heading into the first weekly online quiz to be held later in the week. After lunch, having viewed the online lecture, Jane grabs the textbook for the course and finds a quiet place on the back deck to start the required reading for the week. She earlier printed off some additional readings which were supplied online as supporting material. She has also printed off a copy of the first assignment which is due in 4 weeks and makes notes on this document for later when she will start her draft.

It's time to pick the kids up, and having downloaded the audio components of the lectures in MP3 format, she pops the CD in the car audio and listens to lecture 2. She plans to complete this subject well within the 13 week maximum timeframe so that she can enrol in some more subjects and move through the program quickly. Kids are off to sleep and one last check of the emails to see if anyone has made responses to her posts earlier in the day. There is a nice email from her tutor thanking her for her posts and sharing a fantastic website of recent research will help in her assignment work.