After the H1N1 scare and several natural calamities, I think it is high time that all educational institutions must have alternative teaching system for their students during emergency situations. This will enable learning to continue despite any health or security outbreak.

Preparing an online learning tool is one of the best way to combat the unexpected delays in teaching and by doing this, educators are assured that learning will transpire even the students cannot go to school physically.

I experienced the difficulty of being unable to attend classes because of severe bomb threats when I was in college and whenever there were transport strike in our areas; and I can say that these problems can be easily solve if only our college has a stand-by online learning system during those times.

Recently, the H1N1 caused panic all over the world and it made many schools to temporarily suspend classes to avoid the possible spread of the virus among students.  But if schools have a ready online learning tool, there will be no more delays in class schedules. Students and teachers can still hold classes and go on with their class schedules without interruption if the school will publish their lectures in an online portal.

And I hope that the educational institutions will consider the request of government to set up online learning tools for students who have to stay home.

So here are the skills you need to succeed as an online student:

Organization – No matter how busy you are, you should organize your schedule properly so that you can allot time for studying at night or after office hours.

Time management – this is essential after you organized your schedule. Learn to stick on your schedule so that you can accomplish things as they should be. As mush as possible, set aside a regular time every day to log-in to your courses and check the discussions, and of course to study your lessons.

If you are working or engaged in other works, it is highly recommended to use just one planner or calendar. Merging your itinerary in both work and studies will help you manage your time easily. You can avoid overlapping schedules if you only use one calendar.  And to keep on-track with your course schedule, producing a hard copy of your course curriculum/schedule will do the trick. Post it at home, at your work or even at your car.

Discipline – is the last but not the least because without discipline, it is almost impossible to anybody to follow his or her schedule no matter how organized it is. This is the skill you need to say no to your friends who are asking you to have a night-out but you still need to study or do your home work online.

If you can implement the said skills above, then, there is no doubt that you can be a successful online student who can complete a degree with flying colors. Read more tips here.

Good writing skill can be developed by following the guidelines below:

• Use correct spelling
• Observe proper grammar and punctuations
• Use short sentences when writing

And when you are using a word processor, it can already help you a lot because common word processors have built-in word checker and is capable to correct grammar and punctuations error in sentences.

To make your written report or discussion more understandable, stick in writing short sentences because shorter sentences are easier to understand. Likewise, wrong grammars are less likely to occur in shorter sentences.

Lastly, see to it that your essay or report can answer the possible what, why & how questions.  If the basic and necessary information is reflected in your written report or essay, then you are assured that your writing is complete and understandable.

Remember that you don’t need to create a written report with complicated wordings because simple and easy to understand correspondence is your best bet to reflect a good writing skill.

I just read here that college textbooks are soon to be converted to be viewed in Kindle. In fact, Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland have plans to utilize Kindle this coming Fall. They will be conducting a comparative study between student’s experiences in using Kindles and those who will use regular textbooks.

And with the growth of online students, there will surely be a lot of online schools who will offer this alternative to their students as e-books are more convenient than regular text books especially that the soon-to-be-release Kindle will feature bigger screen that is optimized for viewing newspapers, magazines and textbooks in a format similar to their paper predecessor.

On the other hand, Kindle is also advantageous for regular students because the use of Kindle will surely reduce the weights of school bags. There will be no need to carry books that roughly weigh 800 grams to 1.5 kilograms each. We can also save from using paper and thereby, waste from old and used textbooks will be reduced.

I just wish that the cost of Kindle will become more affordable even to the average earners and I also hope that the cost of e-books will not increase drastically if educators switch from paperback text books to Kindle.

But wait, there’s a nice review of Kindle by a Kindle user… it featured the pros and cons of Kindle and according to him, Kindle is not that good for students especially if you will use it for research purposes. The article is worth reading and you will definitely know where Kindle is best and worst to use.

This readiness tool is free and fully online to help students assess every aspect of themselves that may affect their studying. The readiness tool takes their readiness, their goals, and their learning preferences into consideration for them to rate themselves accordingly.

Each part of SORT has a short explanation followed by a questionnaire. Based on the students’s responses to questions, feedback is provided on his or her personal readiness profile, together with suggested tips for success and links to more resources.

After taking the questionnaire and reading the tips provided, students will surely determine if they are really fit for the challenge of online degree studying. The test can be taken anytime and the result will be available right after taking the Readiness Tool For Online Studying.

So if you are still undecided because you do not know what to expect when you choose online degree studying, head on to Readiness Tool For Online Studying.

The online learning center of Sony Backstage is offering several short online courses that aims to provide updated curriculum in Microsoft products which are taught by instructors who are expert in these subject matters. For those who want to learn Windows Vista, they currently have courses such as:

Understanding Microsoft® Windows Vista® Business Edition
Windows Vista® Troubleshooting and Maintenance
Windows Vista®: Find Information in the Registry
Windows Vista®: Finding Files Using Basic Search

And for those who want to maximize their knowledge in Office 2007, Sony Backstage Online Learning Center has the following courses that can surely help us:

Introduction to Microsoft® Excel® 2007
Introduction to Microsoft® PowerPoint® 2007
Introduction to Microsoft® Word 2007
Manage Your Personal Finances with Intuit® Quicken® 2009 Software

All these courses are taught online and offered for free. So grab this opportunity and improve your computing skills at no cost on your part.

I also want to share this nice article created by GetEducated.com that provides strategies on how to save more bucks in online degree studying. This is indeed worth reading for budget conscious students because by following their suggestions, it is possible to save up to $12000.

But of course, your best bet in finding the most affordable online college is to shop around and compare the tuition fee cost of public colleges that offer the online degree that you want to take.

Again, this is not a big sum of money but $200 is $200, you can buy 2 or 3 books out of it already right? The prize for this mini-raffle contest will be coming from Fanscape, Inc. and TuitionBids.

There is absolutely no need to pay for anything. Just comment here  on how you will use you the money if you will win. Simple and easy! Comments will only be accepted until April 8, 2008 and it should be made before 9:00 am ET.

Although completing the free online courses at MIT Open CourseWare is not equivalent in a real MIT education and do not give any degree or course credit, its popularity is surging with more than 1 million hits per month because of the free quality learning that one can get as he or she takes the courses online. There are so many people around the world who cannot afford to send themselves to school but want to be educated and gain knowledge in a particular discipline. And for them, free online courses like these are great help to get the education they need.

These free MIT online courses are also a great resource for any college students who are looking for ways to supplement their studies as well as for adults who always believe in the importance of continuous learning. Currently, the Open Courseware has more than 1,800 free online courses and so, we start browsing these courses and start learning for free!

With this new feature of eLearners, it will be easier for online learners to search for scholarship or grants  that are designed for adults who are taking up online degree courses. However, you need to register on the site to be able to access or search the said database.

I noticed that there is a disclaimer that the scholarship database is a not a product of eLearners because it is powered and being managed by ScholarshipExperts.com. And so, when you apply for any scholarship, bear in mind that you are dealing with ScholarshipExperts.com and not eLearners.com. But nonetheless, this is a great added feature of eLearners to help online students in their search for online scholarship.