XIDS 2100: Rochelle D

Spring 2005 Distance Education Survey (Student Comments)

Question 15: What did you dislike about the online portion of this course?

It requires a lot of time.

nothing really

Does seem less informative but I understand there is a trade-off between convenience and quality

Sometimes working in groups is hard.

Nothing.

Nothing

Sometimes I needed clarification on instructions.

n/an/a

I miss the companionship of other students.

I didn't like the fact that I did not get physically taught how to do anything

Getting use to WebCT. Uploading some of the modules were difficult.

Not as much face to face as I like

technical problems i.e. problems uploading work

Sometimes, I wish I could talk to my professor face to face and get to know them better.

Nothing! Great class - great Instructor!

I didn't like the fact that I had to have a program that my computer didn't have. (Netscape) So I had to go to the lab to post all my work.

Forgetting about some stuff being due in the past my teachers would send a reminder to the students during the week and sometimes the due dates were unclear in this course.

There is no dislike at all!

Sometimes I think I do not explain myself as well as when I am in a traditional class.

I prefer face to face learning. I've never been a fan of online learning...I'm not motivated in that way.

Too many assignments from the instructor because we were "online"

It was more difficult to set aside time for the class since we didn't actually meet each week.

sometimes I would forget about the deadlines because I didn't have class.

I disliked the chat rooms; why not just meet face to face?

confusing use of horizon live

I do not like how the class is organized.

Sometimes you need to have some face to face time to get full meaning of ideas.

I miss people. I think that face to face contact is essential to learning.

I missed the interaction of the instructor/ we all loved her/ and the other students/although we called each other

No face to face contact --too impersonal.

The on-line portion often is interpretation of literature and reflection. The spontaneous moments created by face-to-face dialogue are often hindered through on-line avenues.

not enough of them offered.

The only thing I disliked was when I first started using the WebCT. It just took me a time to figure everything out and remembering how to use it later.

There was no teacher interaction at all unless there was a problem

Everything. I retained no knowledge that is useful to me from this class.

The group work.

I had no dislikes.

Nothing

lack of response time

Nothing

lack of skills on my part

Slow feedback on papers submitted.

some feed back was a little slow

Our quizzes were geared vague so we would miss many questions and have to defend our answer. So we would have low test grades and have to try and get more points. I take grad school very seriously and I do not like this format.

Nothing.

Unclear expectations

sometimes I could not download the information sent to me

making sure I checked my mail everyday.

not knowing my group members

Nothing

nothing

Easy to forget

Nothing.

I never even met the professor until over half way through the semester because I did not sign up for the class until the last day of registration and our class did not meet in person ever again.

nothing

partial lack of structure

I did not buy the disks for the course so I was only able to do work in Carrollton and that was pretty hard between traveling back and forth and work.

When the technology would mess up lack of face-to-face instruction

I missed the face to face interaction

Having to drive to main campus which is one and a half hours away.

It was confusing. Not as organized as I would have liked it to be. Too many assignments for group work. When you work full time take classes and have clinical time to incorporate into it also the group work really gets to be too much to deal with.

time consuming

Not much face to face instruction.

That all the worksheets were busy work and did in no way contribute to my knowledge of the library.

Just troublesome in general.

no problems

It was all online and the class never met

I don't have time to talk to the teacher face to face. This is through no fault of the teacher I just don't have time.

This is class specific but some instructors make you chat every week at a certain time. So much for the flexibility.

I disliked the unavailability of the professor

nothing

nothing

I still prefer face to face instruction.

Nothing

nothing really.

A lot of typing.

Nothing

Nothing.

I think that an on-line class is suitable for a library course. I still prefer a lecture setting for all my other areas.

Sometimes I could not get into the chat rooms.

The inaccessibility of speaking with my professor face to face during office hours. I either had to wait for an online chat email go to her book store or call her at her place of employment. Not having classmates to collaborate with was differently a negative simply because we all my have been experiencing the same problems. This type of class was too impersonal. It was almost a self study program which exactly why I turned online colleges. Going to a class gives the student an opportunity to speak with their professors and review work to be turned instead a wait and see game.

Constructing the Web page and Web Quest. I probably wasted a lot of time through trial and error.

nothing

I liked everything

I really don't dislike anything about it.

I don't dislike anything about this course.

This instructor makes us chat on our meeting night--that makes it less flexible.

Nothing

Being required to chat--this reduces the flexibility.

It was sometimes hard to get group members to respond back in a timely manner.

I had a problem in the beginning of the semester with losing some work because my home phone rang and the internet disconnected. That instance I learned to avoid because I realized that I could save the work and then go back to it I didn't have to enter all the answers at once

nothing

only meeting at the very beginning and end of the semester

I really enjoyed every bit of this course.

Nothing

Nothing

I miss the interaction with other students and the instructor. Web chats have their place but they do not provide the same value as face to face meetings. I feel that the instructor does not know me at all and feel this program needs direct interaction and communication with others in the profession.

Sometimes questions arose and it was too late to e-mail a question and get a response.

loved it

I miss the interaction. It is difficult to go on written instructions alone. I feel I am missing out on feedback and a relationship with the instructor and other students.

I think UWG made a bold and innovative more taking media classes online but I miss classroom instruction. I miss the relationship with teachers and I miss the insight of students through classroom discussion.

The only negative is that I enjoy the in-class discussion. But the study group and the Professor accessibility make it agreeable.

it was sometimes difficult not having the teacher actually give the instructions

Nothing

Nothing

Nothing.

I have no complaints.

Nothing.

Having to teach myself and not having the ability to ask questions directly.

It is difficult to have someone explain something you don't understand- it’s not as easy to ask your instructor a question-like it is in class.

I thought everything was very good actually and I didn’t have a problem with anything.

I still enjoy face-to-face class meetings.

I like to get projects and assignments done right away and sometimes I had to wait on other people’s responses and participation before I could move forward.

Time constraints on assignments. Some of the presentations were difficult to connect.

We had so much group work and that is the hardest part of online courses for me. Not seeing people face to face for projects.

Nothing.

Technical difficulties

nothing

Why don't you link the portfolio example under the study tools? Also any other examples of work. If I were a new person coming into these courses that is where I would look for links and papers provided by the professor. Actually I did look under study tools first and finally found what I needed under course content. That sounds more like what the class be like.

I felt one or two classes should have been held to cover or review some of the more difficult material

Face to Face interaction

Nothing

no problems at all

no problems

nothing!

For the most part I felt this was a well designed class in need of little adjustment.

This course is not the best course for complete online.

Some of the class assignments for this particular class were very hard to understand. I'm not sure they would have been easy to understand in person either! :)

technical problems

technical problems

nothing

Some of the information would have been easier to learn face-to-face (i.e. with a professor teaching it to me).

If you have a problem it takes forever to understand it.

Not being able to use my own computer for some of the projects because I couldn't afford the program.

Nothing

Not meeting face-to-face to work out problems

Not getting my submitted work back in a reasonable amount of time so that I could see how well I had done.

None

the different computer programs used by my group members. this made putting documents into one continuous format difficult. it required a great deal of reformatting to get it to work. (word adobe etc)

too many projects created to justify class.

nothing

That Dream weaver was not given to us to use at home than just at the lab.

It was hard for me to remember the assignments. I'm a very structured person and need to be held accountable. With not coming to a physical class each it was difficult for me to keep up.

Way too much reading.

I liked most of it but I wish I would have gotten more one-on-one help from the instructor especially on the web quest.

nothing

I would forget about the assignments until the last minute sometimes

Sometimes I had difficulty finding things in the library and I felt bad constantly asking the librarian.

Teacher was very late in returning any grades and did not post things when they were supposed to be. Never did anything on time and would be very late when she actually did explain why she was so late.

I didn't learn as much

Directions are harder to understand because you can’t see the instructor doing them.

nothing

seems to be more assignments

more assignments

I didn't like the 48 hour rule. There were times when it was physically impossible to check in every 48 hours.

TOO MUCH GROUP WORK

Immediate feedback body language facial expressions. I did NOT like the library website. I did not understand how to use it properly. I feel that I offended a lot of people unnecessarily. Because of all of this I could not do my best work and I was overly stressed and distressed.

I don't learn as well using online classes.

I wish it was all online. The face to face meetings were difficult to attend.

The fact that it is so easy to fall behind.

Nothing

I didn't like the actual course

I didn't like that we couldn't discuss questions with the professor by cell phone when it would have been a help to understand some aspects of research.

a lot of work outside of class

going to class for face to face 3 times

Nothing

None

Nothing

having to communicate with people without being able to see their facial expressions body language or hear their tone of voice

Not having an instructor at hand to ask questions and get immediate feedback.

that it took to long to get my grade back I would like instant results

The assignments are repetitive and take a lot of time.

Chat

Not getting to know my classmates and teachers as well.

Not being able to get to know my fellow classmates and teacher.

The Interactive Learning System manual written by the professor was the most vague manual I have ever read. I disliked this manual VERY much! Moreover the online tests are ridiculous. It is impossible to find the exact answer for so many fill-in-the-blank questions when the test is over several chapters. Also I did not learn anything from the modules because I could not understand the questions! Basically I disliked this class I don't feel as if I benefited by taking it and I did not learn anything that will help further me in my future career.

Chat

Nothing

Interaction among the students might have contributed more to the experience.

I felt like the work was too much and too time consuming. I spend about 4-5hrs a week on the computer for this class alone. That is just too much!

Nothing

Did not like the Wimba Room for whole class participation

I dislike the requirement to drive to Carrolton 3 times.

Not meeting with the instructor face-to-face.

We had to chat each and every week.

I have no complaints

Not getting grades back in reasonable amount of time.

having to drive to campus

Nothing

You don't get a chance to meet your teacher face to face.

Hard to understand syllabus. lots of garbage characters

I didn't like the fact that if you didn't have several hours in the day to commit to being on the computer that your grade could suffer.

No discussion of papers face to face with other students. Not knowing other students except the one in my group.

Some of the tedious assignments

Having to wait for a response to a question. If I ask a question after the person with the answer has logged off I have to wait until the next time I log in after the next time they log in to get my answer.

Not getting to know and interact with my classmates

This course was fine but I have struggled to get the programs to work in other classes. (Probably my home computer is not as sophisticated as the things I needed to operate the programs.

unpredictability of assignments

Occasionally my internet would be down and I would have to go on campus to use the internet.

Nothing

Not see the other students.

Nothing much

I have taken MANY on line classes/WebCT and eCore . This has been the worse semester with communication w/ instructors...not sure if it is contributed to technical problems or instructors. I really like on line classes. I work 40+ hours weekly and evening classes on line allows me to take on another class and with the flexibility to work when at home instead of an "assigned" class room time.

Undecided

At times I waited until the lst minute to do assignments.

Not enough contact with other students

It's inconsistency and infrequent use

sometimes I had to teach myself things I didn’t quite understand fully.

I sometimes need more concrete instructions for assignments that cannot be answered easily online. Also the inability to reply to more than one person on mail.

THE ONLY THING I DISLIKE IS THE LOGOUT PART IF READING CPU GOES INACTIVE ON PIPELINE

Nothing

I am not organized enough to stay on task with this much independence so I got overwhelmed at deadlines

The bulletin board is still somewhat confusing to me. Sometimes I can find what I am looking for easily and sometimes not.

The lack of interaction with the class.

I like the face-to-face interaction with my professor and classmates- sometimes it's easier to understand things when someone can explain it as opposed to trying to read everything.

No face-to-face contact. Sometimes you need that.

The amount of reading involved with the course.

I disliked the inability to see other recipients of emails sent to me. I disliked not being able to cancel or unsend email and bulletin board messages that are sent in or with errors.

Nothing

Not being able to unsend email and bulletin board messages

easy to miss important assignments by misreading or losing track of dates they are due. Especially when they are different than the rest of the class due dates.

Not seeing my group to work together.

Sometimes you could not read all the cells we had posted for an assignment we put into excel. Also the alignment of the project was off when posted.

Nothing

course material was very difficult; I would have liked more face-to-face classes with the professor for clarification and guidance

The times my computer would not post an assignment.

Nothing

I don’t like the fact that computer are not perfect.

Nothing.

That we had to be in the lab to get help if we did not understand. Also the test did not pertain to what we did during the lessons and they were extremely long.

easy to fall behind without regular meeting dates

some of the module explanations were vague. The WebCT chapter test ask too detailed of questions.

the professor was helpful although the learning materials were not.

No dislikes!

I am not a very disciplined person so it was difficult to keep myself on task.

Nothing

it is hard to get motivated to do the assignments at the required due date and keep track of what is due when if you don't have to be in class.

Felt I was graded more on quantity of output than quality.

not learning much

Nothing

Not meeting with class members.

our teacher returned grades late but he also gave us a chance to correct the mistakes which is positive

I did not like the way some of the tests were set up. I thought the modules were not explained very well at all

I need face to face with an instructor everyone has different learning needs.

My professor believed that since most of our class was online that she had to make up for every minute that we would have if we were on campus plus more. This is the end of my program and none of my other online classes were taught like this one as far as the amount of work.

I think that I like a little teacher interaction.

Communication between the professor and students. Not having someone face-to-face to share concerns with.

Nothing

The professor did not do a good job of being open to us. She had very few office hours and she didn't really help us through e-mail.

Had to download four different browsers to finally get one to work with Dr. Bernhardt's lectures. Also unable to access the library for the past month...error message says CPIP not supported & OID error

Nothing

boring work

Nothing

Not having someone right next to me to discuss problems in the course.

I feel the work load was a little much for working professionals especially those of us who are not teachers. However the functionality of WebCT was excellent.

I spent more time worrying about my online classes than my regular classes. Or on the other hand I forgot all about the classes and missed work that I know could have helped my grade.

found syllabus confusing

No dislike

The relevance of materials covered seemed very obscure

I feel like I don't know anyone else in the class.

Nothing

It was hard to motivate myself to actually do my work I forgot a lot of assignments and I didn't learn nearly as well because it's difficult to learn just from reading lectures. A lot is lost in writing a lecture down. The spoken word is so much more powerful to me and so I didn't get a lot of out of the course because of that.

the lack of face to face contact especially with new info to me

The syllabus had a few discrepancies.

Nothing. It was very easy to navigate.

How long it takes to get a grade back .

Nothing.

Sometimes directions could be confusing.

The assignments took a little longer than expected.

WebCT has a lot of bugs in it.

When I take a class on campus I feel a little more certain of deadlines etc. I don't worry that I will forget to submit a project etc.

Hard to communicate with instructor.

The exercises and the online exams.

Having to spent so much time making post and researching topics instead of actually learning.

WebCT was awfully confusing and would cut in and out while working on it. Most of the time WebCT was inaccessible to me

Nothing I liked everything

didn't like the course itself- does not apply to accounting degree

Sometimes assistance was lacking.

Nothing

The lack of other sources around me to help.

Having to keep up with the work by myself.

None

Configuring computer to receive Horizon presentations chat room.

The teacher NEVER helped us or was there. She was so slow at grading our papers that I missed a few questions on the midterm that I would have gotten correct if our assignments were graded on time.

Sometimes the windows took longer to open up.

Nothing

Nothing. I liked it.

That I had two assignments due each week.

Nothing

Confusing at times. Tests were very picky. Too picky in fact. Sometimes what taking a test I would simply click in the window and get it wrong and I really hadn't done anything-that is not how computers work.

I was unsure about everything the first month of class

Nothing

My professor Ms. Pittman was late on grading our assignments and answering my emails. When I called her with inquiries on assignments I was put on hold and hung up on because she felt her business was most important. Intentional or accidental still unprofessional because I’m held responsible for getting the work done and making the grade. She should be held responsible for being a professional teacher.

the fact that I am a procrastinator and that I had a large time span and I also tend to forget. Not really the programmers fault but mine

Nothing!

Nothing really.

Nothing.

Nothing

Sometimes I may needed to ask the professor about a question and did not receive an answer until the next day.

It was easy to forget about assignments

having to log in constantly or having to tell the system I wanted to remain logged on. Also the school's web was down a couple of times when I needed to go online.

making sure I took the tests on time.

The interface is a bit confusing on what you need to do for the course and not

sometimes help would have been appreciated.

Some of the work was confusing and sometimes you couldn’t find out how to do something.

The class was not structured well for online learning.

That Web CT would frequently freeze when opening documents and navigating with the back button.

Perhaps the amount of responses needed to earn the highest grade of 5.

not having a teacher tell you when everything is due.

I found no problems with the online component of this course.

Group work is difficult in online format

Nothing really.

Sometimes the concepts are difficult to understand when you are just reading instructions without an instructor right there to ask questions while you are doing the work.

occasionally the chat

The fact that the deadlines slipped up on me and I was caught off guard when they were due.

Nothing

Nothing

Some of the material was confusing and would have been more easily explained online.

None

Nothing

Nothing.

A couple of times I had connection problems. Then I had to find a computer that worked in order to complete the assignments.

Nothing.

Nothing

Software costs... approximately 100 dollars is way too much for glitches programs.

sometimes I was uncertain of what I was suppose to do for a grade and what I wasn't

no face to face interaction

Nothing really.

Sometimes I would forget to some things because It wasn't a classroom environment

cramming

Nothing really.

Nothing

you could not get one on one instructions

the programs we used for lessons and test taking were very ambiguous and were not practical in my view

it was a challenge to sit and work

Computer problems sometimes happen. You have to figure some stuff out on your own.

computer problems while taking the tests

It was hard to make myself do the assignments because there isn't a class that we had to attend.

not much communication

Nothing

I disliked the lack of face-to-face interaction. I enjoy coming to class regardless of the distance because I learn through lecture and hands on work. I did not like being unsure if I was doing an assignment completely wrong and not able to immediately ask a question and receive feedback like I would in a regular classroom setting.

the ambiguity of what was going on

Having to keep up with the information.

You have to teach yourself a lot of stuff.

Too many different sections somewhat unclear methods and due date inconsistencies.

problems remembering to keep up with work

I would forget until last minute that I would have things to do because I had no one to remind me.

When I had a question I had to post it on the bulletin board and hope to get an answer...

There isn't anything that I do not like about on-line classes. Meeting on campus for the first couple of sessions help to put a face to the names when we work in groups. The same holds true for the teacher. A face to go with the professor makes me feel like there is more interaction within the on-line curriculum.

nothing

That turning in assignments and papers is extremely stringent. There is no compensation for turning them in late.

Sometimes it hard to communicate with the teacher if you are not directly in the computer and waiting on e-mailing can be time consuming. Some of the TA in the computer labs during class time seem to be bothered by constant question.

Connection problems

Nothing

It was easy to just decide not to participate in activities.

workbooks

I could wait until the end to struggle through my work

nothing

Nothing

Nothing really

none

final

confusing

not as much teacher student interaction as I am used to

Having to figure everything out by yourself and not having a teacher interaction a couple of times per week.

Not having class to remind you of assignments due

Coming to the campus for finals and workbook turn-in

Having several face to face sessions.

The limit of technology. For instance most "Notebooks" these days come w/out a disk a drive so I would hope that we could possibly use a USB.

Assignments were vague. we should’ve met at least once a week to make sure we were on track. grading should be automatic instead of waiting on instructor to grade.

Deadlines can sometimes get difficult to achieve

It was easy to be lazy and not do the work.

Nothing

Nothing.

easy to forget to do an assignment

everything

No in class help. You had to travel to get help.

HARD TO REMEMBER

If you had questions, it was hard to get in touch with the instructor.

nothing

I got a little too relaxed at one point but that's more on me and my discipline than the on-line course.

freedom of knowing I can wait

nothing

nothing

The change in schedule was very misleading over the internet rather than hearing it in person. Seemed like 'telephone' with instructions being misinterpreted.

No dislike

Nothing

Nothing. I am quite used to it.

Nothing

Wasn't informed enough about what I was required of.

Nothing.

If you don’t check you email you may forget a test.

Nothing

Nothing

that there was no teacher instruction

WebCT was hard to understand and there was no calendar to help keep track of what was due

Nothing

To impersonal for me.

Some of the course content seemed irrelevant or unnecessary.

Communicating with the instructor face to face.

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