I thought that the forums were pretty self explanatory and enjoyed the fact that it wasn't just a paper or essay to write but communicating with other students on our own opinions.

I aced the forums purely because I participated and love to have constructive conversations (which were unfortunately not always the case). I felt the forums were worth my time and helped me in the long run.

it was hard to continuously post to the forums. after my first post i would easily forget to post again. 

The material was very interesting and intriguing for me, but on a personal level I like to debate any subject into existential nature simply for the learning and entertainment value. 

Also, to encourage more participation between students, I would like to see some of the subjects geared in a way that would force opinions to be dramatically different. As long as we can promote a healthy system to debate in, let's bring on the controversial topics! 

The 4th forum is a very good example of this. It was also out of the box and something I have never done before. 

I honestly was one who failed these. I honestly just did not post. I watched the videos and did the reading and looked at the cartoons. Then I decided to do this later and ended up not doing it. 

In my opinion, online forums tend to be somewhat trivial in the mind of a student. They come off as easy yet it is because of this that people tend to neglect them. Others simply don't like discussing things with other people online and prefer a more direct approach. The latter is my case.

Well, I'm a very busy person personally. I spend 25 to 30 hours per week at work, usually from 5-10:30 at night, and the forums really hurt me the most. The quizzes were great, but I did not have time, or the drive I suppose to participate in the online forums as much as you would have liked.

I failed to do one of the forums cause I neglected to log in time and missed the deadline, as well I didn't reply to some other students to get the full points. But this is an easy way to earn points and shouldn't be any reason not to get the complete points for it.

i hate the forums

The materials and topics for our forums were, for the most part, pretty interesting. As long as you stayed on top of things, it really wasn't that hard to get things done and be prepared for when you write your posts. The scoring scale was very reasonable and understandable. It was worth my time and effort.

I took a lot of time with forum posting, and towards the end, I was really enjoying the activity.  I am not someone who will speak up in class, but it certainly isn't because I don't have an intelligent opinion!  Just anxiety.  At first, I didn't really understand that I was suppose to respond to my classmate's posts, and I didn't get all my points which sucked for me.  I do think it is a great part of Joe's curriculum, because it does require you to engage, and assert your own opinion.  Overall, I think it is a great concept....if I could just make up those points for forum1!

For the first couple of forums, I didn't really understand how important it was to our grade so I would only post a couple of times during the week instead of the amount needed to get an A. I did like how the forums were set up though and thought they encouraged great discussion between students.

I have participated in online forums before, but never to the level of what you asked us to do. However, I have never taken a hybrid class before, but I was willing to work hard for it. I personally felt that I didn't know if it was good enough or a little afraid to write my opinion, but the biggest issue for me at least was responding to others in the forum. I didn't want someone to think that I was being a jerk or talking down their opinions, even if I was attempting to add or encourage discussion. I wrote many replies out to others, but didn't post them for fear that they would get angry or offended by my argument for the discussion. 

Given that, I could and should have posted more. I felt you were very fair on the points I received from the posts, and I know I could have done better. I felt that It was worth it, and if I needed to take another history class I would definitely take your class again.

The material was interesting, but I believe having a selection of material is better. Only having one topic and having to talk about it numerous times is a little difficult. The scoring was pretty ridiculous as well, unless you cited something it's basically impossible to get anything more than a "2." The forums honestly did nothing more for me than stress me out and give me another thing to worry about. If the scoring was not so harsh, I believe the forum postings would be a little more enjoyable.

Though I did participate in the forums, I found them to be a huge burden in addition to the other class materials. This is a 4 credit class, and the amount of time spent on forums, readings, studying, and tests was 3-4 times that of any other 4 credit class on my schedule.

I think that in a hybrid course, it is sometimes easy to forget certain things within the course of a week.  Not for lack of reminders, but I found myself making a post in the forum and then distracting myself with the reading or other classes and forgetting to check back again.  Sometimes I felt as though I had sufficiently posted and also made replies to others postings and still did not get the full 6 points for the week and wondered why.  

My only two issues is not wanting to post because I may not be completely educated on the topic and not want to share my thoughts in fear that they are wrong. Also some were too involved for the points we were getting out of it. I tried to participate in all, with exception to the first which the deadline just got away from me.

I think the forums were definitely worth my time and effort. It was nice to see other people's opinions. There was always enough material to cover the topic of the forum. You gave plenty of time for people to be very interactive in these forums.

I failed in aspect of the forums. I understood the materials, but I was either too late to post, or i just couldn't access it at the time. 

but the main one was, I was intimated to post anything after reading other students forums, and I could agree with most of them, but i didn't know what to post as a response, or make my own post in fear of being ridiculed by other intelligent students.

I posted on every forum but not as much as I probably could have. Some of the topics were interesting and others were not as interesting. An idea might be to make it to where they are anonymous to our eyes like the polls but you get to see the writers?

I didn't post because of not wanting my work to be judged by other people but just a self conscious thing I suppose.

I enjoyed the forums. They took a bit of thought. I did not always get the 2 or 3 points I would have liked, and it was hard to wait for feedback to see if I was even on the right track with my thoughts.

I feel that you ran the forums well. The deadlines were appropriate. Some of the subject matter was harder for me, but that had nothing to do with what was assigned. I just needed to be a college student and take charge of my learning.

I was honestly unorganized and was unsure of what the requirements were for the forums. The topics were really challenging and I became confused quickly. 

The forums were very helpful in that they gave me an idea of something important that might be on the test.  Some of the forum material did not relate to any testing but it did relate to the current material and at the very least helped connect some other things I might not have noticed.  The scoring was very fair and not overly strict.  Overall I believe it was worth the time and effort.

The only thing I would change about the forum is to tell the students how you grade the forums in the beginning of the term. 

I really liked the forums. I especially liked that there was some connection to current issues. That helps bridge the history gap and make history relevant to those who think studying history is pointless. Again, my generation is sadly lazy. Most will do the least amount of work possible for a passing grade. Mediocrity is the standard. I honestly don't think I'd change much regarding the forums. I found them helpful and they made you think about how history affects us today. The only thing that sucked was what is mentioned above; not a ton of participation at times, and too often those that did participate made basic posts like "I agree" or "I disagree". 

i failed this activity because I'm quite shy and i hate sharing my outtake of the article on a large scale.

I know I personally have a full time job (6 days a week) along with school (4 days a week) so it is very difficult to ensure that I get on the computer every day. I usually do most of my homework on my days off and unfortunately that doesn't always work out with the deadlines for some assignments. I get lost in my work weeks and lose track of days frequently so to try to make a deadline can be difficult from time to time. It would be nice if all homework was due on the same day so that we didn't have to keep track of multiple deadlines throughout the week. I understand that we need to stay involved throughout the week but sometimes for me in particular that's not possible. I go to school during the day and work at night with a small break in between so one due date a week would have made it easier to keep track of.

It is way more difficult to have a conversation online because the way we speak to another person, in person, is vastly different than typing and having it not sound stuffy or like an essay. It is hard to explain but trying to write what I think about a situation and then cite a page or website, it feels like I'm not doing it right. It was interesting to read what the other students had to say but when I would try to reply I would get stuck because either most people have said the same thing already or I didn't know how to explain how or why I disagreed, I couldn't think of an example or source to cite.