Comment by itchyjunk | Hacker News Reader

Comment by itchyjunk | Hacker News Reader

<rant> I hate Pearons' My Lab & Mastering products. It was a nightmare using the mastering chemistry and having a similar experience with Physics currently. I felt that $80 for just the software is over priced because they want you pay another $50 for the e-coursebook.

It's not that horrible of a software on itself but for that price, i think it's bad. It takes a lot of effort to put in the symbols and stuff, its very picky about answer format ( 1/2 != 2/4 for example and if its expecting .5 then .5 != 1/2). The professor can add their own content and sometime when my physics professor does it, it's really hard to figure out what the software wants. My calculus class is using "MyOpenMath" which is so much better as a software itself. On top of that it's free. And has a free text book associated with it and my professor decided to use that whole combo, so its great.

I wasn't happy with a software called "TestOut" used for my computer class either but at least it was cheap ($40) compared to Pearson. Maybe I am just poor but price is a big factor for me in these mandatory software the college makes me buy for every other class. I want something that enhances my learning experience, not one that hinders it. Especially when I am wasting good money on education. ^_^ </rant>

Honestly I feel really bad for any student right now. All the universities and even public schools are pushing e-learning stuff, but it's in a really terrible state right now. High prices, all sorts of tech issues, incompatibilities with lots of devices that students actually have. Graduating from college in 2010 or so, I feel like I really dodged a bullet as most coursework could be done on paper and used textbooks could be found cheap (or, frankly, pirated). Nowadays I imagine it's a nightmare trying to navigate all these various e-learning systems on top of just doing the damn work in the first place.

E: This is to say nothing of the professors, underpaid teachers, and unpaid TAs who have to put up with this crap too.

Our goal is to put an end to that kind of crap, where publishers charge $100-300 for a text and then gouge students another $50 on top of that for a homework system.

Most content on Top Hat is free or around the $20-40 price range, with most of the money going back to the author (vs. publisher model of paying a 5-10% royalty)

Do the professors get paid to use tophat? If so I will avoid them at any cost. What a perverse incentive to take money from students and put it directly into the professors wallet

nope...

MyOpenMath creator here. Exciting to see a us mentioned, and glad it's working well for you. BTW, the open-source software that runs it is called IMathAS, and is on Github if anyone wants to contribute :)

Ah, bit of a late comment but I had no idea the creator of MOM was around HN. For the other section of the same class, different professor decided to use a paid software which is $120 + the paper back book needed is around $300 new. Trying to go through college when the softwares cost more than $/credit hour is pretty hard.

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