Taking My First Online Course--and Suffering

My empathy level for my students--especially those taking fully online courses--has gone up and up and up over the past nine days.

I've learned how awful it feels when: 1) You flunk a quiz because the instructions were not very clear--or maybe I didn't read them closely?  2)  You are promised feedback within a certain time--and it doesn't come.  3) The amount of time you must spend on the class is about twice as long as you were told it would be.  4) The class is listed as asynchronous--meaning that you can complete it at your convenience within a certain time frame--but if you don't haul ass on the first day, you'll be struggling to keep up the rest of the term.  5)  You put hours and hours into an assignment, read the directions over several times, take great pains to get your submission just right, then find out that you didn't meet the requirements, and you're still not sure what you did wrong.  6)  You flunk an assignment because you did not use the exact terminology or particular words that the instructor demands.

I only hope that some of the many students who have felt the same way about my fully online courses somehow sense my pain and suffering and get some small measure of satisfaction from it.  Seems only right.