Is there one big drawback to studying purely online?
I have two questions for you…
How many webpages do you have open right now?
How often do you check social media?
The fifty or so who watched last week’s webinar with ICB will have heard from one of our former students – Elizabeth Carter (you can watch the full video below). She offered some great study tips.
One recommendation in particular stood out for me.
“Put your phone away completely. Don’t get your phone out while you study.”
She wouldn’t even use it as a calculator (you can’t go wrong with a Casio scientific calculator).
“Any time you go to your phone, something will distract you.”
This got me thinking about one of the challenges of a 100% online course experience.
It’s just too easy to get sidetracked.
When you’re studying 100% online you’re only a mouse click away from Twitter, Instagram, and the myriad of other websites.
This means you need self-discipline.
Think about it, I bet you have at least five other web pages open right now in different browser tabs.
And this is another reason to think again about the importance of a printed study book.
Avoid online distractions! Study using your course books
Studying from your course books helps you to focus.
It deprives you of that immediate access to time-sapping online distractions.
Don’t get me wrong, there are great benefits to having the option of accessing your course books online. Maybe you want to do some studying on your lunch hour and don’t have your printed books with you. Or perhaps you want to be able to search the course book for a specific word (Elizabeth loved that!).
But if you’re studying online only, there’s still a temptation to browse social media, check your emails, even do a little bit of online shopping.
Now, there are some clever ways to try and keep your focus where it needs to be; apps which regulate your social media usage. And there are productivity techniques like Pomodoro.
But Training Link’s printed course books do make it that little bit easier to block out distractions and stay focused. And since Elizabeth won ICB’s Student of the Year award in 2020, her advice is definitely worth listening to.
