Problems with the "basic four"

• "Please send Email" does not work very well
• Typically, students hesitate to ask questions (or too late)
• Teachers are overloaded: overlook details, do not prompt
• "Use the forums"

• Need constant coaching/animation else they die
• Students think their problem is private
• Slowness of WWW-based tools,
  features missing within standard News
• "Be on the MOO", chat, etc.
• Connection costs
• difficulty to find a date for large group meetings
• Not sexy enough
• No teacher animation (lack of time)
• Web pages
• updating
• structuring and navigation, meta-information, etc.

Some market leaders:

• WebCT: http://www.webct.com/
• Topclass: http://www.wbtsystems.com/
• Lotus Learning Space: http://www.lotus.com/
• Cose: http://www.staffs.ac.uk/COSE/ (new product)
• others on available .....

Main features:

• Asynchronous Communication: email, forums
• Synchronous Communication: chat, whiteboard, teleconferencing, group browsing, application sharing,...
• Student tools: home page, self tests, bookmarks, progress tracking, ....
• Student Mgmt Tools: progress tracking, on-line grading, ....
• Lessons tools: authoring (structured HTML text), testing (e.g. JavaScript generators)

Main differences:

• Authoring (ability to import, hand coding, HTML forms-based editing tools)
• Student Management (at course- and general level)
• Application sharing and co-editing
• TeleConferencing
• Flexibility and possibility to adapt the software

Missing features:

• Virtual Space
• Interactive applications (besides HTML forms)
• Interactive shared applications
• "openness" (most are quite locked)

Our evaluation of WebCT and TopClass

• lack of flexibility (closedness)
• Incorporated tools don't do much more than separate tools
• Student management is ok
  (no task management tools)

Major benefits:

• integrated tools (forums, index, quiz engine)
• automatic coherent look & structured text
• student management above task level

..... nice & flexible instructionalism, but not spectacular

Why multi-user environments ?

• People collaborate better with a feeling of co-presence
  (same space = same context)
• People working in pairs can infer what the other is doing from his location
• 3D space metaphors might make hyperspace navigation easier
• Community building ("feeling there")

2/3D Environments

... under development

... potential is not clear yet
(besides community)

Support for:

Traditionalist teaching

• Mostly reading and answering questions

Resource and project-based learning

• Students do things outside the environment
• communication & collaboration

Common problem: students need a lot of attention

• They have a tendency to get lost in text space
  (they rather read than produce in any environment)
• We don't always cope with student management

Build more structured activity into the virtual campus