How to Be a
Good Online Learner

What are the requirements for an online course?

Please make sure to read all of this page very carefully as it contains important information on participating in the courses and receiving information.

Computer Requirements

To participate in online learning through the Virginia Adult Learning Resource Center, you will need to meet the following computer requirements:

 

• a PC or Mac with up-to-date RAM and processing speed
  
  
• an Internet connection with a high-speed connection

  • Users with dial-up will experience considerable frustration and periods of no access and may find themselves unable to complete the course.
    
    
• an email account

  • Your login information will come from valrccourses@vcu.edu or courses@valrc.org. Please be on the lookout for this email. You may also receive emails from leellington@vcu.edu and hmajor@vcu.edu. Please add all of these addresses to your email address book to prevent them from being misdirected to your spam folder.
    
    
  • If you have an AOL, Comcast, Yahoo, Crosslink, Juno, NetZero, or Earthlink account, check your spam folder if you are expecting an email from us and haven't received it. These Internet Service Providers (ISP) are known to block or misdirect our emails.
    
    
  • We highly suggest the use of Gmail for an email account. To signup for a Gmail account, go to: http://mail.google.com.
    
    

Participation Requirements

Please make sure that you are prepared to fully participate for the duration of the online course before you register.

You may review the course requirements at www.valrc.org/training/online/index.html. Click on the View course overview and register button for the course in which you are interested.

If you register for an online course and don't participate or respond to our inquiries, you will be placed on waiting list status only for future online courses.

If you do not post for more than one week at any time during the course, you will be removed from the course and will be placed on waiting list status only for future online courses. If you find that you cannot post for more than one week, please contact your technical facilitator to discuss the situation and your further participation in the course.

A course schedule is posted in each course and also in the course overview. All participants are expected to adhere to the weekly schedule and not go ahead or fall behind their peers. This ensures that the whole group has a chance to discuss each topic before the group's focus moves on to the next issue.

Naturally, some weeks will cover more material than others, and you may find your own working pace varies some during the timeframe of the course. In general, though, we've found the strongest classroom dynamics and most meaningful discussions take place when participants follow the course schedule.

Make sure that you have read through course overview before registering. If you are in doubt about your ability fulfill the requirements of the course, please contact Lauren Ellington at courses@valrc.org or 1-800-237-0178.

We have limited space in our online course since we cap registration at 20 participants. With that in mind, please register only if you are in a position to fully participate. Please refer to our online professional development course schedule to plan when will be the best time for you to participate.

**Participants may not enroll in more than one 8-week course at a time.

Please note that these courses are not for college credit.

For any further questions about course requirements, please contact Lauren Ellington at courses@valrc.org or 1-800-237-0178.