Learner Reviews & Feedback for Android App Components - Intents, Activities, and Broadcast Receivers by Vanderbilt University

good

good

d

The lessons themselves were excellent. Unfortunately there is a rather large disconnect between the optional programming exercises and the lessons. Unless you have a background in computer programming and/or don't mind Googling for answers quite a bit you will struggle understanding what's going on in these exercises. You can generally complete the exercises and get a running program, but actually knowing what's going on is something else. It would have been better had they used a smaller/simpler project, that didn't offer so much as an app, but at least would have given students a better insight in how their code and the learned material work. This is in stark contrast to the previous MOOC in this same series. It's clear why these exercises are optional and I assume the majority op people don't actually do them. The majority of comments in the forums are related to not understanding what's going on in these exercises and it's not uncommon to see the last instructor comment being over a year old and usually not very helpful. You are on your own in this one!

This course might better be called "Android system programming" - and is not even particularly bad at that. Being a beginner at mobile App development, I would have expected some hints on designing a good and userfriendly UI, preparing the basic control flow in an App and - yes - using Intents to tie them together. As the course is designed, the UI is not even mentioned once, let alone designed by the learner - it's just given pre-defined as a "black box" in the - fully optional - "fill in the blanks", non-graded programming exercises

If you are interested in a theoretical overview of the technicalities of Intents and Broadcasts, this course will give you plenty to chew on. If you are looking for some more hands-on practical experience, it would be my advice to look somewhere else.

On one hand, there were simple and explicit things told for a too long time. I regret about attending a few lessons of the course, because it would be enough for me to look at the source code of demo applications, I guess no one would be eager to listen about the source code for minutes instead of looking at it. It's well documented and pretty obvious, why should any other explanations be provided?

On another hand, I learned a few things I missed earlier and got a few ideas for better realizations in my projects, so thank you for that.

There is a lot of good information in the course about how different components communicate with each other in android; however, there is way too much information way too fast. I really enjoyed the rhythm in the first course but, this course left me lost more times than not. Its a great course if you plan on spending large amounts of time searching the web for other resources to complete the optional assignments

This course is good but totally theoretical course. You need to self study. Topics are not connected well and a rushed course. If you are a beginner then you will face a lot of issues just like I did. You will also end up crying. Practical stuffs are totally less. If you are ready to do self study then you can do this course or else this course is not for you.

It was a good Mooc, but I think it should imply many more examples to be made by the own students along the course. I really liked the previous one (Java for Android) and of course I´m going to finish the rest of courses. It´s worth it. On the other hand, examples are good and explanations properly presented. Good... but not as good as the previous.

Would've been a good course when it was released, now all the projects are out of date, causing them to be very difficult to get to build let alone complete the assignments. In addition, there are no project solutions provided to check if the code I wrote is correct or not.

I missed having the required programming assignments from the Java for Android course. I feel like I learned more (even though I did the optional assignments). Also feel like the videos barely teach some critical basics that come up in the programming assigment

What happened to the basics of Android development, like how to create a UI and interact with it? Receiving input and so on? I am glad I had those basics down beforehand, but someone new to android would have trouble following along

There were no required programming assignments, therefore the optional assignments were not properly updated, i.e. their testing units failed to compile. I saw little evidence that the instructor responds to any student questions.

Overall it is OK, but the example framework is more like created for teach purpose which is not practical in industry. Moreover, it seems there are many incorrect part in the assignment especially optional code assignments.

The content is fantastic but I would've liked more graded assignments with intents and broadcast receivers. Furthermore, the optional assignments have several build issues unlike MOOC1

Codes provided were buggy. Could not run in Android Studio. There was no good work-around this issue in forums either. Other than that, a good course. Made a lot of topics clearer.

Great conceptual overview of the topics, although a bit too immersive. The module would benefit from simpler exercises to consolidate a student's understanding

I good a overview of the topics but I don't understand them well enough to implement them. For me the course is too fast.

The second part of the course was developing overly complicated apps, for downloading imageges.

Disappointed

:(

Understanding this course was really difficult.Should have used easier techniques to teach students.

i could understand some parts of the sample code and the explanation wasn't good enough

I think it should cover more basic examples before increasing difficulty

the codes provided for practice are a sudden jump in complexity

Not enough coding opportunities.

Please try to include more code