Cyber School Tips

Sometimes you have to do a little ass kissing to get the grade you want in a class. I hate to admit that, but it is the truth. If a professor doesn’t like you from the start, he or she is going to nitpick at your work until you get a bad grade. You need to suck up enough to prevent that from happening. I’m not saying that you have to be a teacher’s pet to get an A in class, but you should make an effort to connect with the professor if you want to have the best chance of getting a good grade.

Here are some tips to help you suck up to your professor without being too corny or obvious. The right technique can help you get a good grade every time.

Turn in Your Homework Early

I know the concept of turning your homework in early is practically unheard of in the procrastinating world that we live in, but it could help you secure a good grade in class. I am the biggest procrastinator of them all, but I found that professors gave me a bigger break when I turned in my work first because they reviewed my assignments before they figured out how sh*tty the grading process is. I’m serious! I got to catch them when their minds were fresh and their hearts were forgiving. If you do the same, you will have a much better chance of doing well in your college courses.

Ask Valid Questions

If you present valid questions to the professor, he or she will see that you are paying attention in class. That will go a lot further than you may think. All instructors want to see is that they are making a difference in the lives of others. If you are actually comprehending information enough to question it, your professor is going to respect you for the intellectual that you really are. Don’t ask something that is blatantly outlined in the book or the syllabus, but don’t be afraid to ask something important as well. With the right questions at the right times, you are sure to get on your professor’s good side.

Participate in Class Discussions

I realize that class discussions aren’t very frequent in web-based courses, but they do happen every now and then. Some professors actually require class discussions and grade students based on their participation in them. If you can weave yourself into the discussion process, your professor will have more opportunities to see just how smart you really are. You can use that to your advantage and hopefully milk a good grade out of it. It only takes an extra five or ten minutes to make a few comments on a discussion post, so you don’t need to spend a lot of time trying to make a good impression. You just have to vocalize a little more than you do right now.

Subtle Compliments

If you compliment your professor too much, he or she is going to know that you’re just trying to suck up. If you do this subtly though, you will be able to sweet talk him or her enough to get a good grade. Just send your professor an email saying that you have enjoyed the class thus far and that you appreciate the work he or she does. You don’t have to ramble about the professor being smarter than Stephen Hawking or better looking than Stephen Tyler. You just have to make him or her feel special. If you can do that successfully, your sucking up will work in your favor every time.

Your computer is an extension of who you are, and it needs to reflect that. Most people do not realize just how many customization options they have on their computers until they start playing around with them a bit. You don’t have to become a software developer to mess around with the computer. You just need to know what your options are. You can customize the look of your computer inside and out, and that will help you keep it looking like your own. My husband and I always do this with our computers, and that keeps us feeling more connected with them. Let’s take a look at some of the ways you can tailor your computer to fit your personality.

Laptop Skins

Some computer companies now offer special “skins” that you can use on the outside of your laptop. I know you can do this with a lot of Dell computers because my husband has a laptop with a skin on it. You could buy one with some cool art on it or you could get one that is just a solid color. That is up to you. Just keep the skins in mind because they are cheap and easy to work with.

Browser Personas

If you want to customize the look of your web browser, you should see if you could download a persona for it. This is definitely an option in Firefox, but it may be an option in other browsers as well. A persona is just an image that goes at the top of a web browser. It provides a cool background for the space behind the address bar, and it may change the overall color scheme of the browser. You can download a persona for free, so you might as well install one and see what you think.

Computer Backgrounds

Most people know by now that they can change their computer backgrounds, but I don’t think a lot of people realize what all that could involve. You no longer have to put a static image up on your background. You can have the backgrounds switch between several different images if they are all in the same folder. This is a fun way to cycle through memories because you can use pictures of your family on your background. I usually have a folder with pictures of the men in my life – my husband and my cat. Seeing them makes me happy to be on the computer, and it could do the same for you.

Gmail

If you use Gmail, you could get a new theme for your inbox. Just go into the settings and select a theme that you would like to see. Then the background of your inbox will change to whatever you want it to be. My husband and I usually get pictures of the ocean or the mountains for our background, but you can pick anything in the world. Signing into a customized Gmail account makes checking your email almost…exciting? Ya, I guess that’s the word for it. Try it out for yourself and see what you think.

Conclusion

There are tons of other ways that you can make your computer your own, so think outside the box. Whether you decide to draw all over it with a Sharpie or you just change out the screen saver, you can spruce up your computer to be a true extension of who you are. As long as you think about what you like to look at and do, you can make your computer into the machine you have always wanted it to be.

As a college student, you are inevitably going to be asked to write an essay or two for class. This is especially true for English classes, but it can apply to any courses that you may take in college. I have a whole blog devoted to college writing tips because I know how much writing is a part of the educational process. Over the past three years that I have worked as a writer online, I have learned some quick tricks to speed up writing times considerably. I can write a 1,000 word college essay in a half hour if I don’t have to research it, and I can finish it in an hour if I have to cite my resources. How do I do it? Follow the tips below and you’ll find out.

Use Keyboard Shortcuts

One of the easiest ways to save time when you write is to get familiar with your keyboard. There are tons of little shortcuts you can use with your keyboard alone, and every one of them can shave seconds off your essay writing time. I use keyboard shortcuts every hour of the day, and I know they help me cut off at least an hour in my day because of how much I write. Who knows how much time they could save you? Here are some of my favorite keyboard shortcuts:

• Backspace: Go back to previous page on web browsers
• Ctrl+A: Select all
• Ctrl+Alt+Delete: Shuts down computer or pulls up task bar
• Ctrl+B: Bold in text editors, bookmark in web browsers
• Ctrl+C: Copy
• Ctrl+F: Find
• Ctrl+H: Replace in MS Word and other text editors, history in web browsers
• Ctrl+I: Italicize
• Ctrl+N: New window
• Ctrl+S: Save
• Ctrl+T: New tab in web browser
• Ctrl+U: Underline
• Ctrl+V: Paste
• Ctrl+X: Cut
• Ctrl+Z: Undo
• Tab: Go to the next section of a form on a web browser

There are tons of others out there to choose from, but those are the ones I find myself using most often. You can test them out for yourself, and you will soon see how much easier they are to use than any other writing option.

Write Everything at Once

Rather than writing part of an essay, reading it, and editing it before you start on the next part, you need to get all of your thoughts out at once. I am writing this entire article in one swoop, and then I will go back to checking for typos and whatnot when I’m done. I’m about nine minutes into it now without stopping, and I know I would have spent twice that amount of time or longer if I had to stop to edit while I wrote. If you get all of your thoughts out at once, you can allow your brain to pump out information like it would for a conversation. That is going to save you a ton of thinking time in the end, which is half the battle of writing essays.

Use Autocorrect

The autocorrect option on Microsoft Word can be your best friend when you want to save time in your writing. It can correct typos that you make on a regular basis so you don’t have to worry about editing them every time. You can either manually set your autocorrect options or you can right click on a red, misspelled word to set the options from there. With the right amount of corrections built in, you can easily shave hours off your writing time in the future. Explore your computer thoroughly and learn how to use it to your advantage. You’ll have a much easier time writing that way in the future.

Whether you want to learn how to become a social worker or you just want to take a few courses to better your life, you have the option of going through college online or on a traditional campus. Either venue could lead you to the education you are looking for, but most people worry about convenience more than anything else. For the most part, online classes are considered more convenient than traditional classes, but that may not always be the case. Let’s take a look at how convenient online classes really are so you can figure out if they will work well for you.

Convenience of Access

In terms of accessing your class information, the internet provides a much easier option than a college campus would. All you need is a device that can connect to the web, and you can find all of the information you would need for class. This is great for people who travel or like to move because they can still get their education whenever they need to. If you don’t have a way to easily get to a college campus, you may find that distance learning is a great opportunity for you.

Convenience of Deadlines

Most people assume that they can turn in assignments whenever they want online, but that is only partially true. The fact is that you have deadlines to abide by online. They are just a little looser than other deadlines. Rather than having an assignment due at the beginning of a class, the assignment may be due at midnight for a certain day. Some professors only ask that everything is turned in at the end of the semester, and others try to structure their classes like they would in an in-person setting. This is just something you have to look over in the classes that you take online.

Convenience of Communication

Traditional classes are admittedly easier to communicate through, mainly because you have face to face contact with the people on a regular basis. If you have a question to ask the professor, you just have to catch him before or after class. In an online classroom, you have to email the professor or call during his or her office hours. Some professors will give out their Skype contact information, but that rarely happens. Even then, you would have to wait to talk to the instructor when he or she was on. If you are the type of person that has multiple questions a day, the internet may not be a good place for you to go for an education.

Convenience of Enrollment

The enrollment process is fairly similar with online classes and regular ones. Most colleges offer online enrollment options, so all you have to do is speak with an advisor and sign up for our courses on the web. Online classes fill up fast in traditional colleges, but they usually don’t fill up as quickly in actual online schools. Thus you should be able to get right in if you go to a school online. The process is convenient either way, but I happen to like enrolling with an online college a little better.

College is only as convenient as you make it. If you have a packed schedule and you need a little flexibility, you need to go to an online school. If you have a learning disability that requires constant communication with a professor, you may prefer a traditional option. Assess your situation, and you will surely find the classroom that is right for you.

Your web browser is your access point to the internet. It is the software program you have to use to check your emails, see your online courses, post on your Facebook wall, and do everything else you need to do in the day. Thus it is important for you to understand your options in web browsers and select the one that is right for you. Most of these are completely free, unless you decide to use AOL or something like that. Let’s take a look at some of the browsers you may look into using so you can determine which one is right for you.

Different Web Browsers to Choose from

Before you can select a browser to use, you obviously need to know your options. There are tons of different browsers out there, and they are all pretty easy to use after a while. Here is a list of some of the most popular options to keep in mind:

• Google Chrome
• Internet Explorer
• Mozilla Firefox
• Opera
• Safari

There are others to choose from, but that gives you a good overview of some of the most popular options in America. Some other countries have web browsers specific to their area, so don’t rule out any other web browser you may find. You should be able to find one that you like in one way or another.

Choosing between Web Browsers

Choosing between web browsers can be a challenge if you don’t actually test them out. I could outline my likes and dislikes about all of the options listed above, but that would not let you know if the browser would be right for you. My husband and I tested out six or seven web browsers one week to figure out what we wanted to use to work on the internet. We ended up going right back to Firefox because it was just the easiest browser for us to use. You have to go through your own experimentation to figure out which browser you will like the most.

You can always uninstall any of the browsers that you test out, so do not be afraid to download a few different ones to choose from. Just use CCleaner to wipe off empty folders when you are done uninstalling them. That will keep your computer nice and clutter free. Consider the following as you test out the different browsers on your computer:

• Are you able to find everything you normally use on the web browser?
• Do the pages on the browser pull up quickly and correctly?
• Are there add-ons you can use to make your experience better on the browser?
• Do you feel safe and secure on the browser?

If you can come up with positive responses to all of those questions, you may be able to find the perfect web browser for you. Then you just have to worry about learning how to use it. My mother in law just changed browsers after devoting 10+ years of her life to AOL, and she’s now finally getting the hang of a new system. If she can learn to use something new, you definitely can. Explore the features of a browser in detail and you may discover something you can benefit from in the future. You just have to keep your eyes open and you will be able to browse in peace.

If you use your University of Phoenix email account as your standard email address, you may want to set up a secondary email to collect all of the spam that may come to you. Most people have spare email accounts nowadays because they do not want their own email accounts to be bombarded with information if they sign up to use a site or give out their email address to a total stranger. If you want to have this backup account for all of your spam mail, you may be surprised by just how easy it is to set up. Here is a basic guide explaining how to set up a spare email address so you do not have to be overwhelmed with spam mail in the future.

Choose Your Email Provider

There are plenty of free email providers out there to choose from, so you just have to select the one that you like the best. I personally use Gmail, but that is because I need it for my business. I use Google Docs and Gchat every single day, so any other email account just seems foreign to me. Nevertheless, you may prefer Hotmail, Yahoo! Mail, Live, or something else along those lines. You just have to look into some of the free options available and see what you like.

Create Your Email Account

Once you have chosen your email account, you will need to set up a username and password for it. Try to choose something that does not identify the email account as spam but also doesn’t identify who you are. You could use something like rockmysocksoff@email.com, and then no one would ever know who the owner of the account was. As long as you can remember which email address and password you selected, you should be able to use this email account for spam in the future.

Filter Your Emails

Once you have your email account set up, you need to think about filtering messages from your regular email account to that one. Setting up a filter is different for every email provider, so you will just need to look at the settings for your account to figure out how to do this. When you find the section you need to be in, simply filter the messages you don’t want into your spam account or even the trash, depending on what they are. You can filter by email address, by keyword, by name, or anything else in between. Just get them all going in the right direction.

You also need to think about filtering good emails to your original account. That way you have everything you need in one place. I have a secondary email account for my business, but I get all of the messages sent to my personal account. Then all I have to do is mess with one email account every day.

Final Thoughts

Setting up a second email address will give you the chance to go to school, enjoy being online, sign up for websites, and never have to worry about being overwhelmed with stupid stuff in your inbox. I can’t make any promises about your friends not sending you random stuff to look at, but at least this way you have a place to put all of the emails you may get from companies online. Seeing that you don’t have to spend any money to get a second email account, you might as well give it a try and see what you think.

As a college student on the web, you will most likely rely on Google or a similar search engine to help you find answers to all of your class assignments. This is hard for some people to do because they don’t know how to properly search for the information they need. I work in search engine optimization, which means that I spend my days trying to help websites make their information more search engine friendly. As a result of that work, I now have an understanding of how Google works from the other side. Now I want to share some tips with you that I have learned over the years so you can potentially use a search engine better in the future. Read on to see how you can get Google to work for you.

Searching for Keywords, Not Sentences

A lot of people think that throwing large statements into a search engine will bring them more accurate results, but that isn’t always the case. Sometimes filler words in a sentence can cause a search engine to get distracted, just like you would be if someone started to shove a whole bunch of information into your brain at one time. Rather than searching for “Who discovered America in 1492?” you could search for “America 1492.” Chances are you would get the exact result you need from the second option, even if it has fewer words. If you don’t find exactly what you are looking for from the start, you can add more words to refine your search a bit.

Google is fueled by keywords, so you have to think about the most important search terms to look for, rather than looking for a whole question. You don’t have to use proper grammar in your search because that is not going to influence your results. “Homework help Germany” is going to come up with more accurate results than “How to get homework help in Germany.” Test this out a few times and see for yourself. You may be surprised by how much better your results are when you look for keywords instead.

Using Quotation Marks

If you want to find a specific term that you don’t want Google to break apart, you need to put that term in quotation marks. This is important to do with names because it ensures that you will pull up a first and last name together. I actually Google my own name a lot because I want to see what random results pull up for it, but I can never find anything without the quotation marks. I see information about my first name and information about my last name, but not the two of them together. With some simple “quotation marks,” I can change my results in an instant.

Try Different Versions of Words

If you can’t find something by looking up one set of keywords, you may want to replace a few of those words with their synonyms. Let’s say that you want to look up information about going to school online. You could look up distance learning, online schools, online colleges, online universities, web based colleges, internet degree programs, and anything else in between. You can use a thesaurus if you can’t think of a replacement word on your own, but you should be able to come up with a few variations to test out. It just takes one word to lead you to the perfect resource you are looking for. Try out a few different options so you can use Google to the best of your abilities.

Your email account is a portal for you to communicate with other people and store information that you need to reference. However, email accounts are fairly easy to hack. If you have a lot of personal information stored in your email account, you may become the victim of identity theft in no time at all. Rather than letting that happen, you need to know what you should and should not keep in your email accounts. That way you can save yourself from possibly being attacked in the future. Here are some suggestions to help you keep your email as clean as you can.

What You Should Keep in Your Email Account

It is always a good idea to keep receipts for your online payments in your email account, as long as the receipts do not contain information about your username, account number, or password. Most emailed receipts will only contain the last few digits of an account number, but that is not always the case. If you have a receipt that has all of your information on it, copy the information into a document on your computer and then delete the email. Clear it from the trash after that, just to be on the safe side.

Personal emails should not pose a threat for you, so you can keep those if you want. If you get a lot of emails from relatives and friends, you can store those in your inbox for however long you want. If you get weekly emails about aviation scholarships available to you, you can keep those as well. Just make sure you look over the emails to see if there is any information about you in them. If not, they can stay there forever.

If you are currently in college, you may want to keep copies of your school papers in your email account. That way you can easily print them out if you forget to do so before you leave for school. Just email yourself a copy of the papers and put them in a special folder for school. From there, you should be able to find whatever you need any time you need it.

What You Shouldn’t Put in Your Email Account

You should never put something in your email account that contains your credit card number or social security number. If you have to save something like that in that account for some reason, try to format it so that it looks like a phone number or an email address. That way potential hackers won’t see any identifying information about you. You might add a number to the front and back of the number, just to make sure you hide it well. Just try to get creative about the way you conceal that information.

Avoid putting dirty pictures of yourself in your email account as well We all remember the infamous Miley Cyrus pictures that leaked out on the web because someone hacked into her email account. You don’t want your pictures to be displayed in a similar manner. If you want to send something naughty to someone, avoid putting your face in the picture. That way people won’t necessarily know it is you if they happen to see the photo.

Think carefully about the information and images you store on your email account because you never know who may get a hold of it. You may not be at risk at all, but it can’t hurt to be a little cautious. Doing so will give you the best possible chance of maintaining your identity on the web.

The email account you use for school is liable to get clogged up over time. If you have hundreds of emails in your inbox right now, you need to come up with a way to organize them all. Your emails are just like files in your home, so you need to find a way to effectively find them when you need to. Otherwise you may assume you deleted something that is actually sitting right in front of you. The guide below explains what you need to do to have an effective, easy to use email account.

Delete What You Don’t Need

The trash button is there for a reason. Use it. It is easy to clog up an email account with spam and promotional emails that you just don’t need. If you know you won’t ever read a certain email, delete it. Otherwise you will let it slowly work into the back of your inbox, where it will remain forever. I try to delete enough emails to keep my inbox to one page. If I have to go to a second page for it, I need to delete or move something in my inbox. If you adopt a similar theory, you will be able to use your email account a lot easier.

Use Folders to Sort Emails

Most email providers have a folder system that you can use to sort your emails. In gmail, these are known as labels. If you want to keep an email but you don’t necessarily need to see it, you can put it in a special folder for easy reference. For instance, I once attended the University of Phoenix online, and I still get emails from the school about events and classes coming available. If I want to save any of those, I just move them to my UoP folder. That way they are out of my inbox but still easy to access. I do the same with certain people that email me, like my other or some of my clients. As long as everything has a folder to go into, I can keep my inbox easy to manage.

Filter Emails Where You Want Them

You can set up filters in your email account so that certain emails automatically go in certain places. You could have the emails filtered to another email address, the trash, a folder, or anywhere else you want them to go. I run roughly 50 blogs through WordPress platforms, and I get emails for every comment that gets placed on one of those blogs. I just send all of that to the trash because I check the comments on my own instead. If you set up a filter for your account, you can automate a lot of the organization for yourself.

Do a Spring Cleaning

Every few weeks, you should go through your inbox and see if there is anything you can delete or put into a folder. I actually do this on a daily basis, but that is because I work online. I use my email account 12 hours a day, so I have to keep it as clean as possible. I don’t represent the majority though. If you just do a little cleaning every month or two, you can keep your inbox nice and tidy. Then it will be easy for you to operate.

If you organize your email account properly, you should have no trouble finding what you need. I literally have five emails in my inbox right now, and I get about 20-30 of them a day. I just make sure everything gets put where it needs to be so I can find it easier in the end. You can do the same without much effort at all.

Whether you play guitar on the side or you type on the computer all day, you may want to improve the speed and agility of your fingers. This may sound like a silly concept because most people don’t think about finger exercises. However, a simple workout of your digits may make a big difference in terms of how quickly you type on the computer. The main intent is to get the blood flowing in your fingers before you start going to town on the computer. Here are the specific exercises that you can use to help your fingers get loose before you type.

Squishy Grabs

Grab a tennis ball, a squeeze master, or anything squishy that your fingers can get a grip on when you hold it in your fist. Squeeze and alternate your hands for about five minutes. Doing this at other times of the day is a good idea too. I actually started doing this after I started writing for a living because I was getting really bad cramps in my middle fingers. It hurt a bit at first, but after a while, it helped my muscles get used to the idea of being on the keyboard all the time.

Stretch Your Fingers

Stretching your fingers goes a long way in building finger flexibility. Don’t invite pain. Just do this till you are not comfortable, and then stop. You’ll see that you’re able to do more with time, gradually. Keep your palm face down on a table and push your fingers as far apart from each other as they would go, on their own. Then, using your other hand, gently push the fingers further apart, till you cannot do it comfortably any more. Maintain the position for a few seconds and then relax. Then do it on the other hand. Repeat five times overall. This is also something that you can do when you are sitting idle at other times of the day. The more you do it, the more flexible your fingers become and the further out you can reach on your keyboard.

You can do a similar exercise to this one, except that now you do it two fingers at a time for every pair of adjacent fingers. Hold your fingers up in front of you, two at a time, and then take them as far apart as they can. This will again stretch the fingers and help you type better in your CTU online classes.

Play Guitar

Guitarists use their fingers all the time, so becoming one may give you a better chance at typing. Try to locate a couple of simple exercises that go right across the fret of the guitar, something simple that still gives your fingers a good stretch. One of the best ways of stretching those fingers (after the exercises above) is to just have them run over the fretboard. Take it slow and give your fingers the breaks that they need.

Take a Break

You can’t type for hours on end without taking a break. That will actually slow you down over time. I type off and on for probably 12 hours a day, but even I know when to stop if I need to. If your eyes are starting to hurt or your fingers are crying in pain, take some time off. Go take a nap or a relaxing bath to get your fingers feeling better. Then you will be able to get back to work refreshed again. Finger exercises can help you get through a day of typing with the minimal pain possible. You should give some a try today.