Put All Students on the Same Page
SmartStuff Software, Inc. and Discourse Technologies, Inc. have released Discourse labLearner, a software product for interactive group learning. LabLearner lets teachers create and integrate Web-based lessons with real-time classroom discussions and assessment. The program is aimed at schools with state-of-the-art computer labs. It gives every student browser the same Web page at the same time, and each page can include customized questions or comments from teachers. Students can independently follow hyperlinks from a starting page to research lesson answers, or at the press of a button, the teacher can bring all students to the next page in a planned sequence.
In addition, Discourse LabLearner enables the teacher to display related lesson questions within the students’ browsers, and to instantly see answers from every student, keystroke by keystroke. Selected answers can be posted to all students’ browsers, either by name or anonymously. Real-time assessment is provided through charts and reports that teachers can create for each student or for the class as a whole. Reports include questions asked during a lesson, answers to those questions, and statistical information on the number and percentage of questions answered correctly. SmartStuff Software, Portland, OR, (800) 671-3999, www.smartstuff.com.
This article originally appeared in the 06/01/2001 issue of THE Journal.