With the new age of Internet capabilities, colleges all over have been offering online and in-person courses, and for a while now hybrid courses have started to become more and more popular. A hybrid course is one in which part of the coursework is done online and the other part is completed in person. The fall semester at Blue Mountain saw the start of hybrid courses being offered for the first time in the college’s history. To make this process easier on students who may never have taken a hybrid course before, Blue Mountain did something pretty awesome: they gave us the iPad initiative.
The consensus regarding thoughts on the hybrid courses is actually pretty muddled; some hate them, others love them.I myself am in hybrid classes and love them—the convenience of them works great for me. On the other hand, fellow student Ruthann Morgan said she “would much rather the classes be online.” Whether you’re in one camp or the other, the facts remain: the campus is safer with COVID still at large due to these courses being offered. While not ideal, they offer us—students and teachers alike—a way to get in-person learning in a safe way by limiting the times a week we meet, as well as reducing the number of students in each class. A big part of why these classes have had success is due to each student having their iPads. While not every student uses theirs and may prefer traditional laptops, the iPads have helped immensely in terms of making online and hybrid courses more appealing and manageable to students and teachers alike.
Whether you’re all about your hybrid courses or can’t wait until the day you no longer are required to take them, until COVID decides to makes its much overdue departure, they’re here to stay. Some students shared about their favorite apps for the iPad that have helped with the change. My Study Life is a great, free app out there to help with organizing all your due dates, classes, homework, and schedule for those that need the extra reminder of when things are due. If you’re a note taker, GoodNotes is an amazing app (though for a price) that lets you choose many different notebook formats as well as import pictures and pages from the web and books to keep your notes on. If you’re on a budget, though, Evernote is also a great, free note-taking app. Need a little help with math? There are also some pretty cool apps that lets you use a graphing calculator for free; try graphing calculator x84 or talculator. With the help of these apps, your fellow students and teachers who want to see you succeed in getting the hang of these hybrid courses shouldn’t be too much trouble. So for now, let’s make the most of it.
