One of the fun aspects of online teaching is that you can go to teach anytime. I can teach at 2AM in the morning, 8PM at night or 2PM in the afternoon depending on when I am awake or when my family is asleep.
I love the flexibility of asynchronous teaching. There is no set time you have to be at the computer. You can set your own schedule. Your life no longer revolves around work. You can actually have a life.
In the discussion forums, I am able to meet up and interact with students from all time zones. Students in Asia can interact during the times they are awake (while I am asleep) and I can interact with them during the times they are asleep (in their time zones) and I am awake in my time zones.
Because asynchronous teaching allows me to teach students from around the world, I have met students from all walks of life and all ages. For me, it was the world of online teaching that introduced me to the concept of asynchronous teaching.
Asynchronous learning is not at a set time so students who have busy lives with jobs and families can sit down at the computer when it suits them vs synchronous learning where you have to be at a classroom at a set time like in a face to face classroom setting.
Also, when you take a class online, you don't have to get up early to beat the traffic to commute to the college or wait until after dinner when the traffic dies down to come home. Instead, you just walk from your couch to your computer and take a class anytime.
Many of my students like to do their assignments after their entire family is asleep. For some students that is at 10PM at night when the whole house is quiet. Other students like to do their homework before their family is awake at 5AM. Asynchronous teaching allows both students and faculty to teach or learn on their time according to their schedule.
My former boss used to put in an 8 hour day while still being able to spend the day at the park with his family. He would work 4 hours before going to bed and wake up early 4 hours to do online work and in that way, he got in his full time work while still being able to spend time with his family!
When you take an online class, you can also take the class anywhere there is internet. If you have your own internet, you can take your class at the park, in a crowded cafe, or even on an airplane!
You can learn at your own pace. As long as you keep up with all the deadlines, you can learn at your pace.
With online learning, you have more time to reflect on what you want to say before writing it down, so if you are a shy person, you have plenty of time to say what you want without worrying about blurting out the wrong thing if you talked too fast or think too fast.
Welcome to the world of online asynchronous Online Learning and Teaching!
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