Hi Everyone,

Welcome to our Rural Youth Network Resource Hub.

My name is Maryann Brown and I am CEO of Youthrive Victoria. I feel very privileged to work with such an amazing group of young people and supporters. I live on a little farm at Smokeytown, just outside Creswick, near Ballarat.

I have had the good fortune of doing a couple of different online learning courses. One was a Masters Accounting unit through Swinburne. The other was a Diploma of Business and Governance through the Australian Institute of Community Directors. I’ve also taught in online courses at university.

Online Study Tips:

• Get up every day, have a shower, get dressed, do some exercise and some chores and make your plan for the day. Aim to be super organised when studying AND to have time off. Reward when goals are achieved.

• DO NOT STUDY IN BED – I know, we’ve all done it and its lovely but I think bed should be for sleep, relaxation, fun and mental health days. In bed, our posture is not good, it is easy to drift off task, or to sleep and day and night become confused! It’s fine to study in your bedroom, just not in bed. 😊

• Read every single email and every piece of course information as soon as it arrives. Note down key dates. Don’t think you will have a look later when it matters. Every bit of information will help build your study ‘muscle’ and resilience.

• Make yourself watch the online tutorials and clips. Become super familiar with your learning platform (Moodle, Blackboard etc).

• Keep in contact with tutors, teachers, lecturers. They are there to help. They might be feeling a bit overwhelmed at present so don’t expect instant answers. Ask again, if you don’t hear back in a couple of days.

• If you don’t understand a task ask other people in your course or people in this network. There are NO dumb questions. We can help interpret tasks with you.

• Introduce yourself to your study buddies – or anyone you are working in a group with. At Swinburne I was working with people from all over Australia and one international. We used SLACK https://slack.com/intl/en-au/ (or see Virtual Learning Community section) to communicate for our group project. We got to know each other and posted photos of what we were up to in our lives. It helped when we were under big pressure with deadlines.

• Group projects….and when that person or those people slide into cyberspace…could be a problem in coming months. Don’t be that person. Tell your group if you are struggling. Be really clear about who is doing what in the project and talk about it. (We might do a whole separate session on useful tips for group work).

• Reach out to friends and the Rural Youth Network if you are struggling.

• Have fun and enjoy learning. See it as part of building strong foundations for the whole of the rest of your life. Keep in touch. (maryann@youthrivevic.org.au)