Online Learning Part 2

If there is something you are particularly interested and you want to learn more about it, look for an online class.

I am not sure how one goes about finding out about these things, but I'll tell you how I found them.

I subscribed to a magazine called Simple Scrapbooks, which went kaputt earlier this year. My subscription was switched over to their mother magazine, Creating Keepsakes. Now, both of these mags are for passionate scrapbookers like me, who not only love to read, think and study about all the aspects of scrapbooking, we also love to talk about it, use up all our free time doing it, and show our work anyone and everyone.

In a word, we are nerds. In Japanese, Yusuke calls me an "otaku." I proudly wear the badge of "otaku" now as I carry my camera every where with me & bending myself into various positions to get interesting shots of my subjects at low angles. I wear a proud smile when I show my finished pages to his mom, to Ailin and to any friend who comes for a visit. I live and breathe scrapbooking.

Problem is that there is no one around here who lives and breathes it like I do. My friends and family are not even half as impressed as they should be when I show them my pages, and they barely read the journaling much less give the photos more than a glance. Usually, Yusuke & his mom just complain about the photos I chose (or didn't choose) to include in the lay outs. Ailin just says "yeah!" and then turns back to the Wiggles on TV. I started a yahoo! egroup a few years ago to gather together passionate scrapbookers in Japan so we could discuss our hobby. The group still exists, but I am on the verge of deleting it. It's not active and full of lurkers, so no one feels like discussing topics anymore. Plus, I tend to get all crazy passionate when questions come up like, "What is everyone working on right now?" I'm working on 5 different projects and spinning out several pages a week while others are barely making 1 page a month. I needed to surround myself with more "otaku."

While taking my first JS class (the freebie), I did the daily homework, but I didn't post them on the gallery or participate in the forums. I knew they existed, but I didn't think it mattered whether I posted there or not. I was also doing a self-paced class and that had a very inactive forum and gallery. Towards the end of the freebie class, I realized that many of the students were in fact participating in the forum and posting their work in the gallery. Had I missed out?

Next, I'll talk about self-paced versus live classes.