So I've been attending Franklin University for a couple of months now. I've taken 3 courses with them so far. One thing that I did not realize until I got into the courses was how time consuming group projects are. Depending on the course, one 6 week course may require 2 to 3 group projects. This entails coordinating your work schedule with 4 to 5 other people and being dependent on their efforts for your grade. I kept finding myself volunteering as the group leader because I was concerned that someone else might not pull their weight and turn in our group work late. As a group, most courses require that you create a paper together and in the case of Franklin's requirements, you also have to create a group PowerPoint presentation that you present on their FranklinLive system. FranklinLive allows you to upload your PowerPoint and speak into a microphone one person at a time. However, their system isn't that good so people end up running into technical difficulties. In fact, one of my group projects took forever to coordinate meeting as a group because we had to share the FranklinLive system with other groups in the class. You had the option of using one of the other course chat rooms, but they hardly ever worked right. I was told by the tech team of the school to turn off my firewall in order for the system to work properly. In desperation, I did this and about 2 weeks later my computer completely crashed and I had to buy a laptop to get through the last few weeks of classes. Honestly, if I'm paying all this money, I'd expect better technology!
So long story short: If you are considering an online school, remember that many will involve some kind of group work. So if you plan on setting up your school schedule around your family and job, this can be a conflict.
