OK, no reportage from other online alumni, so here's my thoughts on the online course: "Don't do it."
I'm two hours into AARP's online course, and if I have to spend another six hours on it for the graduation certificate then I'd rather devote that time to another colonoscopy prep.
This might just be my own learning style. I don't watch much TV or movies and I generally don't have a lot of patience for information dribbled out at a video pace. (Heck, I can barely wait long enough for this discussion board to load without bringing up Windows Solitaire.) I'd rather read the curriculum (at my personal fast speed) or go hands-on.
I've spent so much time in front of a classroom that I find it very difficult to sit in one as a student, especially if I have to watch an instructor's poor teaching mannerisms while I'm trying to learn. However I also know how to sit in the back of the class, keep my mouth shut and my eyes open, and just pass the time with my own thoughts.
You can't do that with the AARP online course. You still have the annoying voice slooooooowly reading the words on your screen to you, perhaps accompanied with background music or (even worse) actual testimony from other drivers. You have to click a "Next" button on every single freakin' screen, which is no more than three sentences. (It won't advance until you click on the button, sometimes more than once.) To add to the torture, the "Next" button doesn't appear until your announcer has finished droning through the material. Even worse, there's a fast-forward button that works on its own mysterious criteria.
What this means is that a screen loads up and the announcer starts to e-nun-ci-ate the words to you. You've already read them in one glance, and you get it, but you have to spend another 10 seconds randomly clicking on the "FF" icon or trying to guess where the "Next" button will appear. Then it doesn't always respond to the first mouse click. Another screen loads with two sentences and the Chinese Water Torture repeats. Every 10 screens or so you get to "participate" in some sort of random "click around the screen" exercise or an opinion poll. Then you discover that you've just finished module 2.1 of 2.8 in section two. Of eight sections. Just gimme the final exam already, and if I fail a section then I'll sit through those screens.
If you log out to take a break (or if your modem/router glitches) then the presentation backs up a few screens to some arbitrary breakpoint before starting again. If you interrupt the presentation by clicking on the menu then the presentation backs up to that starting point again.
The material isn't much better. I appreciated the screens showing what the view would look like with cataracts or glaucoma or macular degeneration, but I don't need 10 screens of information on how to consult my health professional at every single bodily twinge. I don't need to know how to ask my passengers to talk quietly so that I can concentrate on driving and on listening to the environment for sirens or other traffic. I finally gave up on the alleged course when I got to the second screen (of who knows how many) on the proper neck flexibility & stretching exercises to conduct before you get behind the wheel. After, of course, you consult with your health professional to determine if it's OK to attempt these exercises.
You'd think that the action would move more quickly on the "high bandwidth" setting, but that just lets AARP liven things up with video and animations (which take even longer to buffer). After some experimentation I found that the dialup setting actually moves things along a little faster and with less padding. But there's still plenty of frustration.
The experience would be far more tolerable if AARP had just put a mic on a classroom instructor (while they were teaching actual students) and recorded their audio while showing the PowerPoint presentation. "Pause" and "rewind" are far more helpful than "Next".
Did I mention that spouse and I would each have to do our own separate eight-hour sessions? No sitting side-by-side at one screen discussing the options before choosing our answers-- we each have to log in to our own accounts, click our own quota of "Next" buttons, and pay our separate fees.
I paid $19.95 for the hypothetical opportunity to save $40/year for three years. It's so bad that I'm not even going to ask AARP for my money back. I'm hoping to just let my account expire before my personal information comes to the attention of one of their humans.
