“If you build it, he will come,” says the voice in the 1989 movie Field of Dreams.
We built it – the online education forums– and you came – more than 15,000 – and we would like to acknowledge one such individual.
About three years ago, MHT (aka Matthew Tenk) clicked on his mouse and found his way to our online education forums – out of curiosity and out of need.
“I went on the forum when I was doing one of the articling courses,” Tenk says. “I read about the forum in the OREA College Insight newsletter and I went on just to check it out. I wanted to see what questions were being asked.”
At the time, there was not a lot of information about the articling course, but there were lots of questions about the various pre-registration courses, which Tenk began to answer. But answering a posted question is not exactly the same as answering a posted question correctly.
“A lot of questions related to the pre-registration courses,” says Tenk. “I started answering them because I had the answers.”
He did. He had successfully completed the pre-registration courses and the forum moderators rarely had to correct his responses. In fact, one of our moderators says MHT is “knowledgeable about content and is one of our many valuable contributors to the forums.”
Feedback from the forum participants was also positive.
“It was nice to get a quick response,” says Tenk about how people reacted to his participation in the forums.” They appreciated speaking to someone who completed the courses, someone who had been in the same shoes.”
Tenk’s advice on how to make the best use of the forums – do a search first.
“There is a lot of information on the forums and a simple search would bring up hundreds of responses,” he says. “If you have a question, someone else has probably asked it first. Once you’ve searched and still have questions, then post the question.”
Tenk warns that he does not respond to questions that are off topic.
Currently a broker of record, Tenk is still active on the forums, as a way of giving back to the profession. “I’m doing this because I enjoy it,” he says. “If I can help out… it doesn’t take long.”
Tell Us Your Story
If you participate in the online education forums, we would love to hear from you.
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