It was very unhelpful when it came to the written portion because if you wrote the wrong answer there was no help on what the right answer was so you pretty much just had to continue to guess until you got it right or just not do them. Very easy to use, extremely helpful when the material is difficult. It is easy to see what you have to do and when you have to do it, which makes it really convenient. It was fascinating to see such an interactive online learning tool for mathematics. The activities really helped with the understanding of the topics. I think Zybooks is an excellent resource and makes online learning something to look forward to. I think it's a helpful tool that is good for supplementing learning, but needs outside sources to make the material interesting. I really like the interactive nature of zybooks and the questions throughout the notes. and taking so many classes at a time that is critical. However, submitting autograded code was a pain sometimes, forcing me to wait a couple minutes between each upload because the code wasn't exactly how Zybooks wanted. Very good website, instructor set up poorly, compiles code slowly for turning in questions. IT's a fantastic interactive learning platform. Students are not used to being so precise with formatting in other subjects. Very thorough and bravo zyBooks! I love the interactive nature of zyBooks and I think they do a great job of explaining the material. How good is the zyBooks eBook for C programming? - Quora Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. I dont learn as well just reading text though, I wish there were video explanations and examples. I thought it was helpful, the labs and challenge activities did not provide any problems in functionality. I hope future online classes use zyBooks. I think it is for the most part good, but there are labs that are far more challenging than what we are prepared for in the lessons. Fantastic! I really love the interactive labs. I thought it was very useful because a big part of learning computer science is by doing, and through zybooks I was able to practice my skills as I learned the concepts. In fact, I got my professor to reach out to a zyBooks rep that hooked me up with a subscription to the Computer Science II zyBooks. Sometimes the coding "do it yourself" problems were very difficult even after reading the context. The integrated interpreter and the ways it is used with the material enhances the learning experience in a very powerful way. Learn more here. I also appreciate how zyBooks are a participation grade and that I can focus on learning rather than on getting a good grade. Zybooks had a very easy to understand and gamified learning experience which made understanding high-level concepts a bit easier. I enjoy the flow of the lessons. for example entering '5' should not be marked wrong because the answer it is looking for is '5.0'. The field our textbook is based off of is an extremely fluid subject, so unfortunately some small portions were out of date; which were only a year out at the most. The utility is superb. Definitely helps make possibly boring subjects/concepts more easier to swallow. Honestly, zyBooks was the best digital textbook subscription I have had thus far in my college education. If it were just the zyBook, my opinion may be changed. I think its a good aspect to have in the classroom. Do zyBooks work on a mobile phone? Do you have an app? I think its a better alternative to online classes since it explains things relatively concisely however, i prefer actual classes. Outside of lab sections, I really enjoyed it! Zybooks was easy to navigate through and showed me a list of when my assignments were due. I'm currently using _____ for another class and hate it. Overwhelming amount of chapters to complete at once, but that was an issue of our course rather than the book itself. I was very pleasantly surprised! This will be shown if an incident or maintenance is posted on your status page. Zybooks is a great way to learn your subject and I feel like its a new evolution to the way you learn comparing from a textbook. I would be happy to see other class in zybook. I think it is helpful for me to understand. Terms of Use Privacy DMCA Notification Policy 2021 zyBooks. It is easier to use than the previous websites I've used, but the only issue I see is that I can just click until I have the right answer. With these submitted assignments, I was able to better correlate what I actually learned in class with real world usage. This is my first computer science I've ever taken, and I haven't had good experiences with past online textbooks so this was a pleasant surprise. It makes the material more engaging, which helps with my learning. Zybooks is incredibly helpful when it comes to programming. It really helps. I used to take an introductory programming course when I was still in electrical engineering but that was structured terribly for first-time programmers. Over the past almost 2 years, we have collected data on on more than 35 outages that affected ZyBooks users. For example, one of the chapters used memory allocation in an example but the memory allocation topic wasn't until a few chapters later. I think the financial team should rethink it's margins and what they profit. It was a nice website to use to turn in the assignments and it was easy to find chapters and was really easy to participate in class with the assignments. The educational content is good. It was helpful for making sure I understood conceps, could be harder to just bs putting in effort. The problems throughout the text are extremely helpful. It is a great platform for a class such as CSE which is computer-based. I think having the activities throughout definitely helps strengthen and visualize my understanding of the material. Also, sometimes the explanations can be somewhat bare minimum, leaving me to have to do some trial and errors to figure out exactly what was meant in the explanations. Dale Reed, University of Chicago, Illinois, I liked how each chapter explained a topic well using examples and that we were also asked to implement what we had just read (in challenge activities) to ensure that we really understood the concept. So many online sources don't do that but I like that it encourages students to learn from mistakes. At first I thought having to pay for a book for coding was really dumb since almost all information is available on the internet anyway and my class already has a structure and planning but honestly zyBooks did help nail down some concepts but what it did most was let me see things in different forms then what my instructor did and that gave me a better understanding of how things work and better let me form my own system and ideas on how to format and use code. I found myself being constantly stuck when doing the acoompanying questions and applications on each section. I think zyBooks is good, I wish instructors would utilize the testing system more, CS test are hard to deal with due to subjectiveness. I am paying for it, I should be allowed to keep it. first i think that zybook is one of the best way for learning computer science since it gives you explanations when you did some questions wrong. The formatting of the material in a more portrait page layout similar to textbooks does not work well on computer monitors. I thought zybooks is a wonderful way to learn python. I liked the interactive element of zyBooks, however for the assignments there were some elements that sometimes felt redundant or too time-consuming. Even after going through the material several times I still feel lost on the labs. From Mind to Market: zyBooks | UCR Magazine ZyBook is very useful but for some material the Professor was able to clarify some issues I was having. Some to the point where I had to look at other sources for the answer. Being able to refer back to Zybooks sections was really helpful for my understanding in class. The approach zyBooks took me through to learn the same material was leagues ahead of my learning experience last year. The exercises were involved and helpful, and the material was very comprehensive. Worked well, I think its much better than any of the previous online coding systems Ive used, Loads of information in an easily digestible format. My favored textbook variety. I Love the activities and ability to really delve into my learning, It was okay, but I don't think it taught me computer science. It explains the material quite well. Though I would love if there would be an easy way to access table of contents at the left side of the screen so I can open it even when I am doing the chapters. I learn well through it. I looked through it I like how I can access the textbook and do homework at the same time. I find the labs to be good and reading the book itself proved super helpful. It gives me a very good understanding of the material we are going through in class. Text could be broken up better. I noticed that the questions after each lesson tends to be extremely vague at times and I even get asked questions that isn't talked about in the lessons above. What is ZyBooks? - Quora However it can be confusing to read the text of programming, making learning how to code difficult. I wish There were more videos tho for more visual learning to balance off the tremendous amount of reading and make it faster process. Easy to use, reading is clear, and the challenges help a lot. The coding challenge exercises are well-executed and help me learn as I am reading. This is supposed to be a pretty fast paced/ intense class though (from what I've heard), so I might not like it after seeing it 30-40 hours a week. However, What I like about zybooks is that there is no correct or incorrect answers for the practice problems, in the sense that we can keep trying until we get it right. it is helpful, especially the demo activities. Clearly, some of those 50% of students are going to be upset they cant access our content free or just ignore it (due to points). And monitoring students progress is an excellent instructor tool. Ctrl+Shift+C. over simplifies the concepts and the graphic things are too slow, Easy to use learning platform, and the challenge activities can help students learn better. Instructors can mix and match zyBooks and can combine multiple "catalog zyBooks into one zyBook." Not to mention the frustration. Definitions are clear and there is no additional information that might distract students. Its helpful could be more helpful with fewer assignments. One sees among the relatively-few complaints that our system is picky when grading a programs output formatting. I believe if zybooks had videos inputted into the class it would be easier to learn. I lost a lot of points because of formatting errors. It costs too much money and should be available always. Asking for help, clarification, or responding to other answers. The animations are also useful. Had this been new to me I also believe the layout of zyBooks would make it quite easy to learn. zyBooks is very helpful and convenient. I liked the web systems design it was helpful for learning to create a website, i have never loved having textbooks online, but zybooks is much better than expected. Interface is really intuitive. Involve me and I learn. I think the lessons are extremely in depth and informative, and especially given the new precautions with the "Covid-19" crisis not allowing me to go to school, I've been able to gain a great understanding of all the material through the zyBooks service. Comparing zyBooks with Codio for Computer Science Education Nice ui with good activities that help solidify understanding. Love the challenge problems and lots of examples. zyBooks can include configurable embedded coding environments that allow students to work with real code, on the fly. very useful for more in-depth explanations. Presents material in a way that is easy to follow while providing activity questions/examples with amazing explanations as to why an answer is wrong or correct. You show so many complicated and confusing concepts to newer coders right off the bat and leave out so many basic principles at the same time. Very detailed. At first I was upset because it costs money, but it is so much better than reading a stupid pdf. The animations are extremely slow and the questions are pretty tedious but I did learn a lot. I think it was better than reading the textbook by myself. Overall, my main concern was the lack of advanced material. I have access to zybooks anywhere as long as i have a decent connection to wifi. I learn more by discussions or other physical interactions. I really enjoy the examples and the short activities within each lesson. It was very helpful and the practice problems were very well designed. The material is concise and easy to follow. Great learning platform with it's interactive learning environment. Professors in the past had used some sort of online homework method and more often than not it presented problems in grading, ended up actually shutting down the conversation to learn more, and added to self-doubt and confusion about the topic. Since its my first time using it Im not quite sure about it. I thought the material was too trivial, though I am a fairly experienced programmer and others may have been more challenged. Another request is for more help when stuck, usually on programming. View historical uptime. This feels like I am getting the short end of the stick. Reading and homework exercises are well thought. Explained a lot of the material the professor didn't in a streamlined way, and tested it in little bits and pieces which i liked. This is an amazing application. I thought it contains super helpful tips and tricks. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast. especially for someone like me that is not very quick with information about technology and computers this allows me to focus on key information and not just get through the material without actually learning and applying new concepts. I believe they are helping in making sure that I am comprehending the material. The format is a huge improvement on typical online textbooks. Sometimes I have to rush through the activities without really paying attention just to get them done before the deadline (and because sometimes it just feels like busywork), but it's organized in a way that it is easy to go back and find topics when I need to reference them later. Instead, below we provide every student comment, whether positive or negative, so you can see for yourself what students really think. Great formatting, love the interactive exercises. One of the best designed textbooks (electronic or paper) I have ever used! However, there have been a couple of instances where zybooks has mad it difficult for me to learn a specific topic, mostly because the lesson along with the challenges and participation activities introduce coding topics that have not been covered yet. Many instructors wonder if their students will like zyBooks. $75 after the fact as a pop up "oh were gonna use this " is probably the most annoying thing, considering as a college student we pay for literally everything even existing is expensive so 75 dollars plus tax was the icing on top really. Unique to my education experience and appreciated. Really good challenge questions and practice problems. The playing feature becomes extremely frustrating to follow along. zyBooks is great and it doesn't lag. It doesn't just expect you to know how to code a sudoku solver or a maze solver. It's overwhelming to them and underwhelming at the same time, overall this is not a balanced way to teach coding. It implies a certain steps which make it more difficult to understand why a step has taken place. Too dense and abstract for me to care and comprehend the material. The feedback for each question, whether it was answered correctly or not, is helpful. I like that there are challenges and that we are able to at least understand the. some of the animations are good, but the explanations are lacking to prepare for exercises, and many small errors or lack of relevant information made for a more difficult learning experience compared to traditional textbooks. i love how clearly it explains the material as well as asking questions throughout to make sure that I also practice & understand the material. Can Zybooks Detect Cheating? - What Box Game Easily 10x better than a standard text book, mainly due to interactive examples and exercises. Will the animations and learning questions really help students or are they just gimmicks?