Etudes Training - Testimonials

Etudes Online Training

What our users have to say...

Great course! I really feel like I'm walking away from the Etudes training with a wealth of knowledge about what Etudes can do. This is the first online course I've ever taken and I've enjoyed it very much. I want to thank the instructors for their clear guidance!
-- Jim Bruno
Wow! I appreciated the opportunity to participate in this training course for a couple of different reasons. The experience provided me with an in-depth view of another online course delivery platform. I work for an institution that is currently using BlackBoard. I think this system is more intuitive and better organized than Bb. From a course design and building perspective, the Etudes platform is much more user-friendly....
-- Best wishes to all and greetings from St. Louis, Missouri!

"I have now been trained on four different class management systems, and frankly, I found the Etudes system most powerful, flexible and intuitive. I look forward to using it to build my course. I think the way that the Etudes training is done has been one of the most effective ways of introducing an instructor to the tools and capabilities of a system, short of course, of actually being in the trenches and getting your course ready for delivery for the first time."
-- Mark Lawler, Syracuse, New York. November 2008
The introduction to Etudes online class has taught me so much, and, more than anything, it has gotten me excited to develop and teach my online classes! It's hard to finish this Spring semester in my traditional classrooms because I'm so ready to try online teaching! Besides the content of the training class, the way the facilitators ran the course--from establishing clear course expectations to creating a reasonable grace period to responding promptly to questions--will help me in creating the best online learning environment that I can.
--Susan Herdzina
I appreciated the opportunity to become an online student and receive "real" feedback on my participation and progress. I think it is important to understand and experience the student side of an online class. I am confident that all of us have been a "student in a chair" for a good majority of our educational career; however, being an online student is not a ubiquitous experience for instructors at this point in time, maybe someday.
--Linda Hubble
I am an experience user of Blackboard and other course management systems and I have been teaching Spanish online for two years now. I have to admit that I was very reluctant to see the features of Etudes. Before taking this class, I had the idea that it was a very rudimentary course management system.

All I have to say now is that I am very impressed and completely in love with this new course management system. I want to give special thanks to all the instructors and people involved in creating this online class. I just want to say that our experienced, patient, and caring trainers made it possible and that is not about the management system one uses to teach online but it is all about how one uses it that really matters. I feel that this idea was well incorporated in this Etudes training class.

-- Rosa Arceo, Fullerton College
What impresses me about Etudes, as opposed to the system I'm familiar with (eCollege), is how much easier it is to set up survey and test questions. The "Pool" idea, though available in eCollege, is not as simple to work. For this reason, most instructors that I know don't use weekly feedback questions in their classes. And feedback is vital in any class, but particularly in a new medium like online courses where many of us are walking in the dark.

Also, eCollege does not make it easy to provide students with hints, and if the true goal of the course is to teach the student, these are vital (and often fun to write!). We do not write quizzes to stump the student: we write them to instruct and to challenge. That might seem obvious, but I sometimes forget this. The "hint" option in Etudes will remind me to teach and not "torture."
-- LAVC Instructor
Very smooth, well paced, and organized experience. The tools were very intuitive and the instructors quite helpful. This was my first exposure to online teaching and it couldn't have gone better.... I can only hope it continues this way.
-- Eric Nelson
I had used ETUDES this past semester to take a Spanish class online for two reasons. First, I wanted to learn Spanish and couldn't fit the class into my teaching schedule, and second, I wanted to see how ETUDES and online classes in general worked because I wanted to teach an online class. I felt that using ETUDES as a student was quite simple and pretty self-explanatory for what to do.

Throughout this training, I learned that from the instructor side, ETUDES is still, pretty simple and self-explanatory to use. I had originally thought that I would use the textbook website for most of the course, and ETUDES for just the short essays and discussions, but now I think that I will use ETUDES more, and the textbook website less.

-- Daniel Gilison, Imperial Valley College
This was my first on-line course so I kept an open mind going in. I learned a lot and look forward to continuing on using the ETUDES system.... Being "forced" to be the student is a great way to understand the needs of my students when I set up my site, painful as it can sometimes be.
--Timothy Hills, LA Harbor College
This was a great course, I now feel comfortable with ETUDES. I felt the structure of the course was great. I especially liked the flexibility allowing one to go at his/her own pace.
-- Gregory Hausmann
I had a truly great experience in this training. I will miss seeing all the names of my fellow online classmates late at night knowing that we were all working away to finish our assignments. When I was told that I would be teaching an online accounting course I didn't know where to begin. This course has taken away much of my fear of teaching online. I know I have a long way to go to be an effective online teacher but now I have three great role models in the lead facilitators of this course. I hope can measure up to your standards.
-- Satoshi Kojima, East Los Angeles College
This course serves as a very good model for how to teach online courses.
--Lori Adams Chabay, Gothenburg, Sweden
This training class is probably my saving grace. I previously had considered an onsite workshop which would have been in a classroom for four (4) consecutive Mondays two (2) hours each, which someone thought would prepare me to navigate etudes as an instructor. They were wrong. No way could I have done what I did in this class in eight (8) hours.

Thanks to our instructors who answered questions on Sunday nights even though they gave us the weekend off if we wanted it. I really liked being on both sides the online classroom at the same time. Being able to be an instructor and student really helped me to put all of this into memory. And last but not least, even though I had taken some online courses before, I learned some ideas in this course that I will definitely use in my own courses.

-- Rebecca A. Sloat
This was an AWESOME training course! I learned a tremendous amount about the online teaching process. ETUDES is not an intimidating proposition to me anymore!!! Thank you!
-- Voltaire Sterling
As I took the Etudes training, I became excited over the many possibilities teaching on-line could offer. I wish I had the option when I was working on my BA! Thanks again for all your help, especially for answering my questions promptly.
-- Colette Apelian