Looking for motivation as an online student and developing your personal leadership skills?

Our first webinar is this Thursday, September 4th from 6-7pm!

This webinar will be presented by NOVA/NOVA Online alumni Joshua Anton.

Register for the webinar here!

Check out Joshua’s Bio below!

Like many student leaders, Joshua Anton faced his own set of adversities. On February 10^th, 2009, the day after his 18^th birthday, Mr. Anton was asked to leave home while still a senior in high school. This event would change his life forever. Working 3 jobs and attending school full-time, he completed high school on schedule and later in that same year began his new life as a student at Northern Virginia Community College.

As a student leader at NOVA,  Mr. Anton helped to develop the Loudoun campus Student Government Association as its first President, served as a Student Ambassador, and Vice President of Marketing for Phi Theta Kappa. Mr. Anton would also work with future Attorney General, Mark Herring to develop a bus route in the Loudoun County Community that would provide enhanced public transportation to NVCC Students. As a student leader and alumnus, Mr. Anton worked with his fellow student leaders to leave behind many sustainable events that would continue to impact students, NOVA Cram Week (Free Tutors and Pizza before Finals) NOVA’s Got Talent (America’s Got Talent for NOVA) and the Loudoun Leaders League (student leadership conference promoting sustainable leadership)

In June 2012, Mr. Anton transferred to the University of Virginia, McIntire School of Commerce. Building on the foundation he developed at community college, Mr. Anton would venture into leadership once again, but this time through a sustainable product development competition co-sponsored by Unilever Corporation and the student organization Enactus. Mr. Anton and his team developed plans for an innovative disposable men’s razor called the “Ax Defiant” that if implemented will reduce a percentage of the 2.5 billion razors added to landfills annually.

The team won the U.S. Round of the competition and moved forward to become the representative of the United States in a global competition in Singapore. In this competition, 10 teams around the world proposed marketing strategies to Unilever Executives for their Lifebuoy brand. The theme of this competition was centered on designing innovative solutions to get children to wash their hands more often throughout the day resulting in saving 2 million children’s lives annually.

Mr. Anton’s professional endeavors have included numerous entrepreneurial related projects, including a social media consulting firm, yOptimize, a student textbook company called A.I. Textbooks; authoring a book named “Investing: Blunt and to the Point” that provides students with guidance on investing; and co-developing a mobile application for Apple iPhone and Android that prevents students from “so-called” drunk dialing. That application known as “Drunk Mode” is currently available in seven languages.

Mr. Anton has given numerous formal public speeches at local high schools, elementary schools, and community colleges regarding topics on his life story, leadership, entrepreneurship, and his community college experience.

 We look forward to “seeing” you there!

Student Success Skills and Engagement Outside of the Classroom

In the first post this week about student success, we referenced tips and strategies to help you as an online student within the virtual classroom, but what about success and engagement outside of the classroom?

One topic that is very important to promote your own personal success and develop strong leadership skills is personal resiliency and life skills. Now what do you think we mean by this?

Here are some examples:

– Learning to take responsibility for your actions, positive or negative.

-Acknowledging when you make a mistake and understanding you might not always get to chance to rectify it .

-Building your own support system whether family, friends, co-workers, peers when faced daily stressors.

By not only identifying how these skills can effect your personal success but also developing these areas within yourself, you will be better prepared for personal challenges that may arise. Throughout this Leadership Common Experience, we will be sharing topics and proving resources for you to further develop these abilities.

Here is another great article we wanted to share that talks more about this topic. Read it here.

A great way to further build on this idea in an educational environment is engagement with the college and other students. We want to highlight  this since it is just as important to be engaged  outside the classroom as it is inside the classroom

The National Survey of Student Engagement measures student involvement in co-curricular events and activities, and the effect they have on students. According to this survey, the more involved students are in an institution, the more invested they will be. This can also lead to higher grades and the more likelihood they are to persist to the next semester.

As on online student, it can be hard to find ways to keep connected with your college and peers outside the classroom since you are not seeing them face to face.

1) Follow NOVA Online on social media- NOVA Online is on Facebook, Twitter,  LinkedIn and  this blog to provide daily/weekly updates about important academic dates and deadlines, virtual and in-person events as well as programs such as this to promote your success as a student.

2) Connect with NOVA Online on Google+: By creating a Google+ account through your student GMail, you will have access to +NOVA Online and connect  with other online students, join some of our student interest group and attend online events such as Google hangouts.

3) Share your own ideas for engagement-  Have a great online event idea? Looking to connect with other student interest group we might not offer? On behalf of NOVA Online Student Life, we want to hear your ideas and help you create ways for you to be engaged with NOVA Online and other students. Contact elistulife@nvcc.edu to share these with us!

Do you feel engagement is important outside of the classroom? Is there anything that we forgot? Let us know here!

Week 1: Identifying Online Student Success Skills

As you are starting your online classes, for the fall semester, this is a great time to reflect on how you can be successful in an online classroom environment. For those if you who are taking online classes for the first time, you will see some significant differences including how classes are structured and  time that need to be dedicated to get the best learning experience possible. It is important to adapt your mindset and expectations when you think of success in a virtual classroom.

We want to take this opportunity to reference an article that outlines 10 tips of online college student success.  Here are some highlighted points from the article:

Self Determination-“As with traditional campus-based education, self-determination is just as much of a key factor to success in online education. Education should be viewed as a means to improve yourself and your circumstances; it can be the key that unlocks all the doors.”

Communicate Effectively with Faculty and Students– “A good understanding of the coursework and expectations of the professors is crucial to passing and making good grades in any given course. Since in-person communication is not an option, make use of email, chats, forums, and other formats to communicate with fellow students and professors if you have any questions and need any clarification.”

Making school a routine– “As with other aspects of life, we often learn by doing, and in doing we get most proficient when we get into a routine. The same is true for online education. It is best to determine what time of day and where you are most productive and can give your full attention to the coursework, and make that a habit.”

To read more on these tips and others that made the list, you can visit the article here.

Another great way to help assess your readiness for online learning is SmarterMeasure. This tool offered through NOVA is an indicator of the degree to which distance learning and/or learning in a technology rich environment will be a good fit for you. It will help you prepare yourself for the online classroom and create realistic goals to be successful as a virtual student.

To obtain log-in information for the SmarterMeasure assessment, email Elicounselors@nvcc.edu from your VCCS email account. Once you complete the SmarterMeasure assessment, you can find more information in the ‘Assessment Summary’ section.

What do you think about the topics shared in this article? Do you agree? Is there anything you feel that was left out as you are starting your classes for the fall? Share your comments!

This fall, NOVA Online has created a Leadership Common Experience for students taking online classes to engage with peers outside of their Blackboard classroom and explore personal and professional leadership skills and qualities that will promote their success and overall personal growth in college.

We want to highlight that students can still find similar resources to make the most of their college experience, even if that experience is primarily virtual.

Beginning August 25th here is the outline of themes that we have picked for each week so you can see progression of the program and pick out topics that might be of interest to you:

Week 1: Identifying Online Student Success Skills In and Out of the Classroom 

Week 2: Understanding Self in the College Environment/Goal Setting for the Semester

Week3: The Importance of Faculty Rapport

Week 4: Job and Career Exploration

Week 5: Netiquette- Creating a Positive Online Presence    

Week 6: Next Steps- Revisiting Goal Setting For The Future

You are probably asking yourself, how can you participate?

1) Follow this blog, http://blogs.nvcc.edu/elife/

2) Review the articles, videos and resources that we will post each week and share your thoughts and comments to connect with peers.

3) Attend one of our live virtual leadership webinar series speakers  featuring :

NOVA/NOVA Online alumni, Joshua Anton

Keynote Speaker, Joe Paul (http://joepaulspeaks.com/)

NOVA ALumni, Omnia Elgoodah

Register for these webinars coming soon!

For more information, contact elistulife@nvcc.edu