4.2 Problems with the "basic four"
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"Please send Email" does not work very well
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Typically, students hesitate to ask questions (or too late)
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Teachers are overloaded: overlook details, do not prompt
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"Use the forums"
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Need constant coaching/animation else they die out
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Students think their problem is private
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Slowness of WWW-based tools,
features missing within standard News
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"Be on the MOO"
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Connection costs
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difficulty to find a date for large group meetings
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Not sexy enough
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No teacher animation (lack of time)
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Web pages
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updating
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structuring and navigation, meta-information, etc.
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Summary:
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Students need a lot of attention
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They have a tendency to get lost (they rather read than produce)
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We don't always cope with student management
Build more structured activity into the virtual campus
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Note:
Our experience hasn't been really bad, but we want to do better
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E.g. my technical Internet course (Staf-14) works all right with a "standard" approach:
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1 exercise per period,
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grading for each, marks count for the final evaluation
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good resources on the Web (including examples)
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students have to meet requirements, but can freely choose the subject
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Auto-motivation exists for easier technical subjects
(Html, PHP, JavaScript, VRML, etc.)
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On the other hand, my Java course is rather a disaster
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e.g. I failed to check on student's work every week or so.