Paperless Study

There are hundreds of ways to make your online class a better experience. Studying online is an increasingly available option - it's cheaper, and in many ways, better. There are lots of articles explaining how to create on-line learning communties and get a sense of belonging with your classmates far away. By far, this is the most important aspect of on-line learning.

But second comes the technology, which I've written an article about here. Unfortunately, teaching hasn't quite caught up to the possibilities digital study has to offer. What this means for you is that you'll have to make obsolete resources match more rapidly-developing technologies. Until the education system catches up, you're going to have to make some accomodations.

If you have any interest in tools and techniques to save paper, money, and consequently do your part in preserving the environment, this tutorial is for you. For two semesters of on-line grad school, I had 1589 pages of assigned reading in PDF format. I only printed 47 pages of that, because I had to present on those particular readings and wanted something I could refer to in my hand. That's 1542 pages I didn't print by doing my readings all on the computer. That's about $77 at a nickel apiece. But more importantly, that's a considerable chunk of tree I saved. Plus, those annotated readings are stored electronically in folders on my computer where I can refer to them as necessary, and review the notes I took embedded in the PDF files.

Portable U

Given the increasing popularity of on-line courses and abundance of internet cafés around the world, it’s completely feasible to get a degree on-line while on the go, doing all your reading, posting, and research at internet cafés along your journey. All this can be done from a portable thumb drive. I'm now nearing the end of my 2nd semester in a master's level on-line applied anthropology degree, and I've done both semesters entirely using a 4 GB portable flash drive. I used this trusty knowledge store in Internet cafe's in Nicaragua, an AOL dial-up connection in the home of a gracious old couple who hosted me in Florida, international calling centers at the beach, restaurants on Costa Rica's east coast, and just between home and the office. You probably won’t go the full gambit and try to balance an on-line degree while backpacking through Central America. But at the very least you might want to keep your on-line class portable so you can carry it around with you on a flash drive instead of being tied to a specific computer. The other reason for doing this was that I walk to and from work in an area notorious for armed theft, and I tried to minimize the risk of being robbed and loosing my laptop by carrying my course in my pocket instead of my laptop in my backpack.

If it's your goal to keep your on-line studies portable by creating a flash drive you can carry around with all your studies on it, I've created a tutorial will help you do it. Granted, most of the work will be up to you to personalize and contextualize your "Portable University" for your own on-line classes, with links and folders set up specifically for your degree. But aside from that, this guide will suggest some helpful tools and bare necessities you’d probably want to include in your Portable U.