Studying Online;Succeeding through Distance Learning at University

32 Getting ready for online study 
gain a better degree (Cheong, 2020). When looking for suitable 
lights, check the “lighting temperature”, which is a number such as 
“6500K”. According to Mike Cheong, the best colour temperature 
for studying is from 4000K to 6500K. He adds, 
A longer LED lamp with bulbs will disperse the light more even-
ly across a bigger area. A small spotlight will keep the light in 
one specifc area, meaning you might have to move your book or 
equipment to read and study. 
QUICK TIP: Try to avoid buying cheap lighting. You will be 
studying a great deal of your time indoors facing a computer 
screen. Get the best lighting you can afford and you will avoid 
several problems caused by poor lights. 
 
CHOOSING THE RIGHT HARDWARE 
With your room set up to allow you to work well, your next con-
sideration will be the technology you need. You might think, “all 
I need is a laptop”, and, in one sense, that is all you need for online 
study. However, there are many other aspects to studying online 
where the choice of technology becomes an important factor. 
If you don’t get the right technology at the outset, it can lead to 
frustration, annoyance, and reduced productivity later on. Hence, 
getting your technology choices right from the start will save time 
and money. 
Laptop or desktop? 
You will need a computer to study online, and it might seem a 
good idea to get a laptop. If you want to study in the library or 
a cofee shop, rather than at home, having a laptop will be es-
sential. Equally, if you are studying in a hybrid way, with some 
face-to-face teaching and some online, you will need a laptop for 

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Preparing for online study 33 
those in-person sessions. However, laptops have limitations that 
can make studying online more cumbersome and awkward. Plus, 
they tend to be slower than desktop computers, which means that 
those fractions of seconds over the years of study could add up to 
many hours of lost time. However, the British online technology 
magazine, 
TechRadar
, suggests that deciding between a laptop 
and desktop is not straightforward because each kind of device 
has several advantages (Key, 2021). One factor, though, may be 
costs. 
TechRadar
says that getting a laptop with the same specif-
cation as a desktop will cost more money. So, if you want the best 
specifcation, a desktop works out more cost-efective. 
Ultimately, you will have to compromise – or buy two machines, 
a desktop and a laptop. Tat will give you the best of both items of 
technology, though it will obviously double your costs. Table 2.1 
compares desktops and laptops to help you consider what will 
work best in your specifc circumstance. 
If you have selected a laptop, you should also invest in a laptop “ris-
er”. Tis is a device that raises the laptop above the desk’s surface