Desktop Shortcuts That You Should Have For Your Online Courses

When you are taking online courses, your computer becomes your classroom, library, study space, and then some - so having the right shortcuts on your computer desktop is a must.

- Your online portal: Put a shortcut to the online portal that you use to access your online course materials.

- Microsoft Word: Make it easy to start typing that big paper

- Course folder: Create a folder within your My Documents folder for each online course and store all of your papers, spreadsheets, and any other works in process there.

- Course syllabus: You will be referring to this document constantly throughout the semester to know when projects and papers are due, so keep it within easy clicking with a shortcut.

- Library link: If your course involves doing research through your library’s online resources, you can reduce the amount of time it takes to get to the online resources by saving a shortcut on your desktop.

- Firefox or Internet Explorer: Whatever your internet browser of choice, to complete your online courses, you will be accessing it quite a bit. This shortcut should also be put on your computer’s taskbar, so you can open it without downsizing other windows first.

- My Computer: For those files that you access less often, use My Computer to browse your way to them.

- Google link: Place a shortcut on your desktop to the search engine giant for quick reference, though, of course, you will be using academic sources for your papers.

- Paint: When you need to send a screen-shot to tech support to find out why you can’t access the online course’s online portal or the library’s online academic resources, click CTRL+ALT+PRTSC, open Paint and click paste. Then save the picture and e-mail it to the IT support person instead of wasting time reading error messages to them over the phone.