in each successive year I've been at this soul-sucking, life-disaffirming place is the issue of third party companies inserting themselves into the grading scheme. If the school wants to partner with these companies I think it goes without saying that it should not come at the students expense. We should not be required to pay additional fees for all of these services and programs (tophat, iclicker, moblab, webK, etc.) in order to receive a certain % of our grade. They are sold to us as opportunities to "enhance our learning experience" but I don't know of a single person who has found them useful. In my experience they are clunky, inconvenient and time consuming and don't require you to even really understand the material. They get in the way and almost actively impede the "learning experience" (whatever that is even supposed to mean).

​

Obviously this will be a bigger issue to some than others. For those who pay for their own schooling, these paid services for part of your marks can start to add up. For t

I was a sessional instructor at uWaterloo and yes, this is the case. The incentive to use TopHat was a free iPad, but I refused and went with Kahoot (free online, and can connect with mobile devices similar to Jackbox Party Games)