Online learning a boost for isolated learners

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"Online learning is a must in an isolated community," Sylvia Stephens insists.

Stephens, 55 is an adult learner from a community of 600 people who can't say enough about the value of education at any age, especially the online variety. She wants more members of her Nisga'a Nation to know how valuable it can be.

"Promoting education is a must for our people. There's four communities in our Nisga'a Nation and I've never heard of anyone who has completed (online) certificates."

She hopes more people will benefit from them the way she has done.

Stephens has a passion for business-oriented courses, and after reaching several educational milestones, she says she'll start an Entrepreneur Associate Certificate program this September.

She's looking at the potential of marketing and tourism and has the ultimate goal of starting her own business in something related.

She's already taken 23 courses online with Northwest Community College.

"I'm taking the essentials of marketing course right now with BCIT in Vancouver online." That course is a prerequisite for a lot of human resource management certificates, according to Stephens.

After being alerted to the possibility of an online program starting up in her community if there were enough applicants, Stephens took the prerequisite mathematics and English courses and enrolled online at Northwest Community Collegein 2002. Stephens, who said she was "computer illiterate" despite having worked 20 years with the Lax_galts'ap government, said she only knew a couple of basic programs before taking her first two online computer courses.

"I had a computer at home and that really helped. And I had Internet access."

She said it took her about a month to get used to the online learning system with the help of an e-learner's course, before she registered in a one-year office assistant course. The instructors were mainly based in Smithers, she said.

"I had to complete 13 courses before I received my business technology certificate. It's the same thing as office assistant, but my certificate said 'business technology certificate."

She received that in May, 2003.

Last September she enrolled in an accounting specialty certificate program, also managed through the college at Smithers, although the instructors are based at Malaspina College on Vancouver Island.

Stephens, who averaged 92 per cent in accounting, attended her graduation ceremony for that program in Terrace on May 29 this year. Her highest mark was for electronic spreadsheets, where she got 95 per cent.

The best thing about online learning, Stephens said, was that "80 per cent of the time, my work was done at home, where it was nice and quiet.

"I could get up at three in the morning to do it." She said she takes time to think things through at that hour, before inputting her work on the computer.

Stephens lives alone, which means she has real control over her learning environment. She has a small home office containing her computer, and a combination printer, scanner and fax machine.

She said while there was a lot of flexibility built into her studies, "We had a schedule we had to really abide by."

Stephens said she learned a lot about time management and organization studying online, but she has never had to ask for an extension to finish her courses.

"Tests were all timed. A lot of them were 60 minutes."

The finals, she said were supervised at the college. "I had to set that up myself, but they had to be supervised."

The only minor frustration for Stephens so far is that she is "not connected to the high speed Internet yet," but her computer is fairly new and she's not complaining.

"I'm really grateful for my band sponsoring me for my books and tuition and my living allowance, ever since I started."

Stephens is "really glad" her grandsons are taking Nisga'a education and learning their language and culture, and she is doing the same thing through evening classe. These courses are in a communal environment, face-to-face, rather than online. Stephens said when she was young, using their own language in school was forbidden and she's happy that situation has changed.

Between language and culture classes, "I got my 12 credits within the last four semesters," Stephens said proudly. "I plan to take the next levels-two, three and four-in September."

Stephens doesn't spend her whole life online. She's also an avid gardner, growing fruit trees, vegetables and flowers. She smokes fish, starting the end of May. She also sews and she paints.