I can't speak to the student side, but I teach a college class on-line, and I generally stick it in its own project for each quarter. Then I have actions and sub-actions under that. To make it really work well it helps to understand parallel and sequential actions. Combining those two things together can establish some pretty complex dependencies. It took me a while to grasp this, but once I did, it really helped.
Because my course has new assignments pretty much every week, I have a parent action for each week under the project. Then I have additional child actions under that.
If it was me, and all my work was in one physical space and mostly on the computer, I'd probably break the computer related contexts down by program or something like that. Then I would have a reading context for any reading that isn't inside the computer, and perhaps an admin context for any organizational work I might need to do outside the computer.
So for example, if my on-line course is on the blackboard vista platform, I'd either have a context called web browser or one called blackboard vista.
Then all my assignments, quizzes, etc. happening in blackboard vista would be listed under that context for each class.
I might have an MS Word context too, for papers I need to write. Or I suppose you could instead have a writing context.
In my own OF set-up I differentiate between computer off-line and computer on-line, so if I'm out and about with my laptop and I want to see what tasks I can do without an internet connection, it's easy to see those.
As someone else said, if everything happens in the same physical space, then you don't have to have contexts. But on the other hand, contexts are really just a way of filing info/tasks. So as long as the buckets you make are meaningful to you, that's what matters.
If you know you're going to want to easily see what reading assignments you have due, having a reading context is useful. If you want to see what reading is due that you can read without an internet connection or a computer, then you want contexts that are granular enough to set this use case out separately.
That said, it's probably a good idea not to get too carried away with the number of contexts you use. You want to be able to assign them quickly, without too much thought.
I made it through 8 years of college and grad school/professional school without even using a day planner. But I will say that I think in the on-line learning environment it is important to try and stay organized, because you don't have to show up to live classes every week, where the teacher is more likely to remind you about upcoming assignments, etc.
Last edited by kingsinger; 2011-02-19 at 01:49 AM..