Tammy:
You have highlighted one of the benefits of posting biographies. By identifying students in your locale, you can form an e-learning community and arrange for face-to-face meetings to share ideas about the course content. If there are group projects you can request theInstructor to assign students in your local to the same group.
Satrohan
I think the biography is the best way to "break the ice". This is the way that instructors and classmates learn about each member and can relate to their status. I alwasy have enjoyed the biographies in my online classes and find that I may have a classmate or two that live close to my area.
Laletrice:
As per my response to one of your earlier postings, sharing biographies is probably the easiest and most effective waqy to "break the ice". We encourage Instructors to post their biographies through hyperlinks in the Course Syllabus. A video-clip of the Instructor accompanied by a transcript of the video is the most effective way for an Instructor to provide a biography; nevertheless, text supported by a head-and-shoulders of the Instructor is good enough. So is text alone.
Satrohan
