|
| Virtual Seminars |  Virtual seminars seems to be the next step in the direction of increasing students participation by offering a space where every student, no less than the tutor, can set a discussion program, discover with fellow students only certain themes in depth, while leaving other themes for discussion by other students.
At the organizational level, the virtual seminars obtain one of two forms:
1. Synchronous seminars in which the participants are online in the same time, and communicate electronically by sending or receiving messages for the duration of a set session.
2. Asynchronous seminars in which participants can enter the discussion at dissimilar times during an academic period, by introducing a new topic, and by reading and replying to existing messages.
A synchronous seminar runs once a week, at a particular day and time. It lasts for about one hour. The tutor sends a welcome message followed by students’ greetings corroborating their attendance online. The number of students may differ between 2 minimum, to 5 maximum. The tutor starts a discussion by typing a question the moment all students were online, or he or she invites a student to pose a question for the group to discuss.
The benefits of this kind of seminar are not inconsiderable as the limited number of members means that students can focus on an exacting topic, test their ideas in writing, advantage from the tutor's and other students views on that theme, and obtain a record of this discussion for further study.
On the other hand synchronous seminar is that its fixed duration might limit the number and length of student contributions. The time limits of every session seem to make pressure on students who may want to expand on their views, or to react at the same time to a number of points made in the conversation. And this pressure is most clearly evidenced in the originality of participants in abbreviating their messages by using half words, fancy symbols, or other kinds of jargon comprehensible perhaps to their fellow students, but very rarely to their tutor.
This problem seems to be resolved in asynchronous seminars, which run throughout the teaching term, and operate as a student forum. Every course has a forum with a definite number of discussion themes. At the beginning of the module, the tutor organizes the forum by posting; say 5 dissimilar messages, defining 5 different main topics. These messages have a distinct heading, a preliminary paragraph including a number of ideas or open questions, in addition to a couple of reading suggestions on the theme. A student who links to the forum may see all the major topics, and choose one of them as the topic on which he or she will contribute.
|
|
