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. I helps a lot with the explanation of the material and then helping me understand different types of code. zyBooks has a portfolio of course content featuring interactive exercises and animations. The textbook industry is too bloated with big companies who have little to no interest in actually proving useful material, only to make a buck with forced overpriced textbooks. Also good for reviewing content in one place. There is no point in buying a zybook if the contents just lock back after my rental has ended. Very good website, instructor set up poorly, compiles code slowly for turning in questions. Welcome to zyBooks's home for real-time and historical data on system performance., .. . I'm just starting CS program slackiswhack 2 yr. ago For Python: PyCharm For Java: Eclipse Good luck. The code grader can be a bit weird, especially for more difficult assignments, but the animated explanations of topics (particularly algorithms) are incredibly helpful. I think it's really cool to learn like that I like the activities. I think its great for learning things like circuits because it makes it easy to interact and see how they work internally and how all of the equations and systems would apply. I heavily rely on zybooks for learning to code, and it has not only been a great learning tool, but it is also a resource I find myself very often turning back to when problem solving in programming. It is structured really well and helps me focus more on topics I would have normally missed or skipped over when reading a typical textbook. I like the organization and comprehensive nature of the material. So far so good. I think it conveys material in a way that is easily understood. It was a very useful tool when it came to learning C Programming. useful but show answer made it easy to skip through. I would use this if I were a professor. It also provides enough practice with the in-text questions and challenge questions at the end. That includes nearly any popular browser: Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, and more. I think zybooks is a good resource as study materials to go back and look through briefly, but as a textbook it doesn't translate well for some courses. Becoming the bad guy. I enjoy zyBooks more than other textbooks as the assignments are engaging and the labs are relevant and decently challenging. It's helpful and interactive. The interactive content helped me develop a better understanding of C++. Informative and helpful in learning new programming languages. Also, some of the things that have been used as examples so far have been slightly comforting. So here I am. I really like the way that zyBooks is set up, it is clear and helpful. I think its a good aspect to have in the classroom. The animations and mid text quizzes seriously help reinforce and sometimes clear up readings and help cement the readings in my head. Covered the topics well with visualization, text, and activities. vegan options at biltmore estate. Especially since I no longer have an instructor to talk to in class to help me learn. The animated examples are easy to understand and help a lot. Pretty easy to use, although the sensitivity to white spaces was rather unnecessary. It's really helpful, but the professor used only zybooks to teach, instead, it will be helpful if he used board teaching and then assign zybook questions at the end of the chapter. Reddit and its partners use cookies and similar technologies to provide you with a better experience. I thought it was an extremely helpful learning tool. I love that it is an interactive textbook that checks for understanding in a very helpful way. Also, I would have preferred that this book be available for print and save as PDF. Useful learning technique. Great system overall. Any questions I have are right in front of me with the answers and a great explanation. The material is well-organized and presented concisely. If i don't recall information, or the syntax to a given statement i can usually find the answer on Zybooks. It's honestly a very useful tool. I think zyBooks is a very easy program to use and is very convenient since all of it is online. Anyone else experience this with zybooks? Some issues with program feedback; also not sure how to solve some of the earlier problems without knowledge from later chapters. Zybooks is a great learning tool that teaches the concepts of topics very well. We understand; money is tight. first experience was really positive. The responses are to our end-of-term survey question: Please share your thoughts on zyBooks. The only thing I would change about zyBooks is adding short video clips with narration at the end of each section, summing up all that was learned therein. Some instructors say students wont want to pay, especially given the rise of free materials (OER). Practice problems along side book are quite helpful. Read aboutInstructor SuccessandStudent Success. zyBooks is really a good material to expand my horizon about coding. Overall, my main concern was the lack of advanced material. Showed material in great depth with a step-by-step guide to walk you through difficult material. I think its a pretty good program. Zybooks feels easier to understand than I thought it would be. Personally, it's difficult sometimes but I always walk away feeling as if I've learned something. zyBooks is very easy to use, user friendly, and provides great learning tools. Easy and convenient way to learn how to program. But there's a solution to the problem: zyBooks. I did like the fact that I shows you what you need to learn and the trial by error factor. Very easy to use and understandable. "They say a picture is worth a thousand words. I benefitted from the many exercises in coding and reading/solving code outcomes. I felt I was able to learn more by being able to figure out what the correct answers were. zyBooks actualized it. I really enjoy the examples and the short activities within each lesson. Organized, repetitive, instills learning. Easy to learn with visuals but not so much with a lot of text. I love it! The book needs more explanation of how to do things, when I was completing activities and needed guidance, there wasn't much and I ended up spending a lot of time trying to figure out what was going on. It was great since it had a bunch of examples and showed you different situations with every topic. I usually come up with the solution by looking at the sample code create a similar code. Also useful for looking at examples of code for lab assignments and projects. Zybooks is great but the only thing is that I wish some of the challenge activities were more simple like the practice problems. I'm very pleased with the interactivity, which helps my engagement. Instructors can evaluate any full zyBook for free. Some topics become tedious. I lost a lot of points because of formatting errors. The first textbook I've actually used in my college career. All content is posted anonymously by employees working at zyBooks. It does not need to be severe, just enough to encourage people to actually read the material. I thought it was excellent; No real complaints. This was my first time working with an interactive book and I was able to learn and understand concepts better. It is pretty useful for learning ans studying, but sometimes the assignments on here are over material we never really went over. I find the graphics to be extremely helpful in learning. However, I truly wish the book wouldn't disappear after the semester. 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. The content was very thorough and descriptive. Problem was that it was too well made. The step-by-step visuals where you had to press play over and over felt more tedious than useful since they often didn't demonstrate concepts difficult enough to need such detailed explanations. I find the slow pace of the animations (even at 2x speed) to be annoying sometimes, especially when there are a dozen or more so unskippable steps. It was so easy to navigate through the app. From past experiences it always took me alot of time to go and look up the textbook from previous Math classes. useful and effective way to teach the basics of coding since the content is nothing new or cutting edge, helps free up space for the teacher to teach more important/complex concepts. The exercises evaluate and develop understanding. Good learning tool, but the multipart videos are tedious. And it includes most popular devices: desktop computers, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. I don't think zybooks did a good job of explaining some of the bigger factors, or the more in depth aspects. The active activities do aide in learning the material. Online classes can be difficult, but this was definitely a great resource available. We have not filtered to only show positive responses. I liked the interactive aspect of it, though the way the information was sometimes structured was a bit confusing. This course is teaching students that you must follow code down to the last newline argument instead of rewarding them for creating functional code. I will be honest that the section on Linked Lists has been kind of confusing, but I think in the end I figured it out. Compared to a textbook, we provide infinitely more feedback (literally). Can Zybooks Detect Cheating? - What Box Game The multiple choice questions are plentiful enough that I am able to learn from previous mistakes to answer similar questions. zyBooks is terrible : r/learnprogramming - reddit It was fine to use but not my favorite way to learn. That's great for the teacher, and that's how software is really tested in real life, however, students from SNHU (at least the ones I tutored) are going through the course without ever running a single line of code on their computers, and interacting with their programs, they just keep writing the code on the zylabs interface, and keep sending the code until the testing suite says the code is correct. It helped me learn with the readings and then practice/ apply my new-found knowledge with the labs. Very helpful for studying! The participation activities help me to make sure I understand the material, but it is always nice to be challenged. Material is good as it walk throughs the topics. Then, the follow up questions were fair and relevant. Being able to refer back to Zybooks sections was really helpful for my understanding in class. The interactive reading makes learning new topics just that much easier! aeries parent portal madera. Their use, compared to traditional reading, requires less time and is less monotonous, as well as often being easier to understand. The animations are a bit clunky and slow sometimes, and $75 is a bit steep for one-semester licence to a digital textbook, especially when lost of courses are moving to open textbooks. I think it's a helpful, interactive textbook for learning matlab. It helped me understand everything so well. Hi everyone, I'm a online tutor, and I get many SNHU students that are taking CS classes, most of them are having contact with a programming language for the first time (mainly python), and a recurring issue that I see with beginners from this university, is that they are completely lost with really basic concepts (assignment, variables, literals, input/output), and the main culprit seems to be the Zylabs. My class used zyBooks for previewing the materials before the lecture. It always made it interesting and intuitive. ZyBooks is a coding platform for learners It has quizzes, coding challenges and other ways to help learners learn. Pretty good, liked how it really showed the steps and you had to work through it. it presented everything in an organized way and provided interactive material which I believe is essential to learning computer science (as opposed to a normal textbook). It introduces material at a good pace and is a great companion to computer science classes. There some issues on the CS courses when solving for problems. Additionally, please force instructors to provide a WORKING SOLUTION to their tests when they write strange tests and instructions. I think an easy version of the labs that is a bit more guided would help me a lot. This, I feel, is VERY opposite the way coding takes place - especially since testing your code is a VERY important part of how a successful completion of a programming goal is achieved - and having no clue what the end result of the desired 'test' is for unit testing results in massive frustration and repeated attempts to push code through the grinder until the right size pieces of code come out. 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. I like it but I sometimes struggle to understand what the free response type questions want specifically. It presents the material in an easy to understand way and looking back on the assignments is a great way to review material for tests. Overall, the participation activities are fine. This was often frustrating. The service is nice because I can always go back to the information and review something if I'd like. I like how it's very interactive and how it is organized. I am so beyond grateful for having zyBooks for this course. zyBooks 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. When a question is answered wrong or right there is an explanation to go along with it which is helpful. I love the interaction while I learn. I appreciate the non-strict learning style. Students: Using a zyBook in your class? zyBooks - Build Confidence and Save Time With Interactive Textbooks Replace your textbook with an interactive zyBook. Becomes tedious. The materials are very easy to understand. gives the answers for the challenge problems, so if the user doesn't know the answer, the user will be able to see and understand the problem better, and the user will do better next time. I very like the interaction part of Zybooks. The questions are very challenging. and taking so many classes at a time that is critical. Instead, below we provide every student comment, whether positive or negative, so you can see for yourself what students really think. Zybook has been a handy tool and has helped me understand the concepts thoroughly. The educational content is good. Explanations of concepts are clear and concise. Very interactive and helped me learn the fundamentals of Java programming. I think zybooks is pretty good. Very good for someone who is just starting. The labs were also fun! it's kind of annoying to program in these text boxes with no linting or auto completion of brackets/paranthesis, etc. The repetition from typing in answers helps reinforce Java syntax. The zylabs were an awful part of the course tho and ended up hurting learning a lot. Easy to navigate. I learn more by discussions or other physical interactions. Get a demo today. It is an incredible thing to have a publisher actually care about the student's education and provide the books at a reasonable cost for once. It is very easy to log in and complete assignments. I wish more classes would use it. The website has a very modern UI, easy to understand lessons, and has simple, yet clear graphics for the needed assistance. It gives real-time feedback that helps to learn to debug but also does not give the answer out right. I love that it is interactive, that helps me learn and actually remember the context. Concise text improves usability by as much as. I'd like to talk about the material in the books, but I never had access to them, so this is only especulation based on the level of understanding of SNHU's students: It seems to me that the material tries to simplify things, but what it actually happens is that it doesn't cover concepts well, and students feel that the material is doing big leaps from one concept to another. Very well done material, however a little tedious for people already familiar with the material. Also, if there were more in-depth details on certain topics, it would be greatly appreciated. I think a little more help on challenge activities would be good. I stared at and attempted the lab for over 45 minutes before understanding what it asked, but there was no helpful hints on where to even start. It requires "just right" code input which is absolutely not applicable in the real world, where there are many ways to solve the same problem. By rejecting non-essential cookies, Reddit may still use certain cookies to ensure the proper functionality of our platform. By accepting all cookies, you agree to our use of cookies to deliver and maintain our services and site, improve the quality of Reddit, personalize Reddit content and advertising, and measure the effectiveness of advertising. ZyBooks makes learning concepts easier by providing an in-depth explanation, organized sections, and feedback on why an answer was right or wrong. Also, a little more information in some areas of the text could have been more helpful. I love the idea of an interactive textbook, and all of the participation activities and challenge activities help me understand material so much better. Status embed installed correctly. It's a great resource but reading the lessons is more time consuming then I would like - I wish I could make it move a little faster. Especially considering i have never taken a program class before. I think that it's a great educational tool, I like how straightfoward and easy to understand the course material, I enjoyed the challenge questions they provided and the fact that they always bolded key terms in my text. zyBooks is very helpful and makes things seem easier than than it is. It is only when they have you apply it that everything goes out the window. View ourentire zyBooks Catalog. Involve me and I learn. I really liked the platform, material presentation followed a logical progression. The examples helped me do the challenges and labs a lot. With ZyBooks I can! I think the material itself was a hard subject, thus it was hard for me to learn. Its super helpful for my programming classes, being able to work through the coding and have it graded on the spot is awesome. At times I rushed the participation activities but they're still useful for quick review of material before exams. The sections are also broken up into easily digestible parts. It is very difficult for me to grasp a concept through lectures or information. It's a well organized and useful tool in studying, as long as the teacher follows the guidelines and doesn't rely on it for the sole method for the students to learn. The C++ module with Professor _____ had labs created by him that requiring skills not covered in the participation and challenge activities. I was using Codecademy but I have some GI Bill left, so I figured I might as well use. I usually have to use an IDE just to make life easier. It was nice, for a computer science course, to have an interactive textbook. I definitely prefer using zyBooks over a traditional book. zyBooks is a great way of keeping the readers engaged in the material with the ways i'ts formatted and the embedded book activities. Makes it a lot harder on the student to make sense of all of the material. It was kinda hard to follow at times however, it was easy in the end. Great formatting, love the interactive exercises. It's easy to navigate and helpful. If it were just the zyBook, my opinion may be changed. The interactive learning segments and in-text quizzes allowed me to really grasp a deeper understanding of the text I was reading. ZyBooks gives me a very hands-on approach to learning the concepts illustrated in my class sessions and is relatively simple to navigate, sometimes however I feel like the instructions are a little lacking sometimes and leave me wondering how to do the assigned problem. zyBooks is great and it doesn't lag. I found it more useful to take notes straight from zyBooks rather than attempting to listen and summarize what my professor stated. So far I like the interaction and feel more confident that I will understand the work. It really helps. I think its a better alternative to online classes since it explains things relatively concisely however, i prefer actual classes. I love the way the lessons are structured and each topic or concpet has enough examples to help you understand. After using a zyBook, most student comments show it was worth the price. Outside of lab sections, I really enjoyed it! I enjoy the interactive modules. Since its my first time using it Im not quite sure about it. Very easy to follow, and informative. Another rare complaint indeed relates to cost. This is my third or fourth zybooks experience and I have always been happy with them. I think zybooks is very advances and convenient to use depending on how the professor decides to utilize it. It was better experience than using traditional books and it is way better than using other online resources. It's good. it's hard to go back and study those examples when my answer was erased. I believe that zyBooks is the best way to learn, because it is an interactive textbook. I took a programming fundamentals course at the community college I was attending that was on zyBooks. When I miss something in lecture they are a great way to learn the code. It has clear instructions and enough information that anyone, if read all the way, is able to complete it. zybooks is bad - theactiongrouphr.com I would say it is a great tool to expand beyond the scope of most courses, but not that helpful in directly assisting in the actual course. All playback participation activities. First half was good and then it accelerated a bit fast for me. I did not enjoy the in-zyBook programming assignments. It was interactive and kept me engaged. Zybooks would be great on its own, however in addition to a bunch of other assignments, it can be overwhelming and I feel like I'm just doing this for credit. I used it several times to look up questions or to just learn more. Great Job! Easily accessible and a very interactive way to learn from a textbook. The metrics about how much progress is made and during which time frames is incredibly helpful. It is not my favorite software to use, but it is definitely helpful when it comes to reviewing materials with the challenges and participations. I think it is a great way to learn coding concepts in particular! It is easy to use and the explanations are clear. So easy to keep track of assignments and presented the material in a very clear, understandable way. Could be tedious with spacing. We havebeen working since 2012 to offerthe best STEM courseware. second it also helps the instructor on seeing how students in this class do. However, this time around, I feel like I am actually learning because I am getting feedback on my programs from zyBooks and I am actually able to check my learning with the questions and activities in the course. Not only does it help with my classwork, the modules and quizzes are very helpful and I'm grateful that the quizzes show the correct answer. It's really thorough and the practice problems help a lot! With these submitted assignments, I was able to better correlate what I actually learned in class with real world usage. The way it is organized is very useful and the examples and participation activity are helpful. Terms of Use Privacy DMCA Notification Policy 2021 zyBooks. Interface is really intuitive. I guess in general it's a great idea and a compelling way to learn content, but for this subject, a lot of the zybook wasn't necessary. It was a very helpful and organized tool that helped with the material for my class. It is a lot easier to follow than a regular textbook. I feel that I now understand a lot more than I did coming into the quarantine and that the extra time has helped me fully realized how helpful the zyBook activities are when they are correctly used. Less text doesnt mean less learning. Easy to use, reading is clear, and the challenges help a lot. Link: Student survey Basics A loop commonly must iterate a specic number of times, such as 10 times. It's a helpful interactive textbook for online schooling but with in-person teaching it becomes even more effective. zyBooks can include configurable embedded coding environments that allow students to work with real code, on the fly. Love the challenge problems and lots of examples. Very thorough and interactive with its material. It was helpful to have the resource of zybooks to go back to in order to remember information and study but I would not consider it a tool when first being introduced to new course content. The way zyBooks makes the students engage with the material is very benefical. It is much more engaging than reading a 1,300 page textbook. The animations are extremely slow and the questions are pretty tedious but I did learn a lot. I was very pleasantly surprised! While grinding and irritating at times, it truly helped me understand the material. Zybooks brings a different perspective and different approaches to learning the material outside the classroom. I thought it was a very good way to help me learn C++. In one case - I had completed a program as specified by our teacher, and when I put it through the tests it failed 0/9. It was very helpful and the practice problems were very well designed. On the negative, the same forgiving atmosphere that allows for correction also allows for laziness. I like the fact that it is a virtual text book that has questions to answer as you go. Especially with the data structures. I would definitely recommend this to professors who are looking to improve their students' metacognitive skills. It works well to portray exactly what is necessary. With zybooks I was able to get the practice and explanations that I really needed and I started doing a lot better on my exams and quizzes. Overall experience is great! Instructors can mix and match zyBooks and can combine multiple "catalog zyBooks into one zyBook."