A virtual classroom for undergraduate Periodontology: a pilot study

Nikos Mattheos, Anders Nattestad, Martin Schittek, Rolf Attstrom
2001 European journal of dental education  
The Integrated Distributed Learning Environments or virtual classrooms constitute a new promising structure in education of health care personnel. A virtual classroom was developed aiming to teach periodontology to an international group of 28 dental students using a problem-based learning (PBL) approach. The course was web-based and included synchronous and asynchronous communication, on-line libraries and multimedia material. Students were organised in 4 independent groups and each group was
more » ... ppointed a tutor. The results of the study indicate that one of the most positive effects students experienced was competence in using the computer. They also rated highly the use of multimedia for learning of clinical procedures. It was found that web boards and email were too slow to allow group work in the virtual classroom. Real time communication programs were found to be superior for problem discussion and hypothesis formulation. However, email and the web board played a significant role during certain steps of the PBL method. The students ex-
doi:10.1034/j.1600-0579.2001.50401.x pmid:11683890 fatcat:l7xhiw26cvbllhhpqynkk3l44u