Teaching on distance: Behavior

J. van Rhijn

School of Natural Sciences, Open University of The Netherlands, Noordbroek, The Netherlands

Almost 20 years ago we started to make a course on behavioral biology for our University: a textbook with theory and questions, and a practical based on interactive video programs on four 30 centimeter laser vision disks. Dispersed over the country we had 18 Study Centers where students could watch these programs and make a record of their own observations based on this material. Of course, image quality was marvelous, but the technical options to make a record were rather poor. When computers acquired a position in almost every household and most of these computers could be used to view videos, we decided that students should be able to do all the work at home. The videos were transferred to CD-rom, but unfortunately, the interactive component was dropped. In the mean time the course has been completely rewritten. It consists now of the theory in a printed textbook, an electronic workbook on CD-rom and three projects in The Observer^® 5.0 Student Edition (Noldus Information Technology bv, The Netherlands) on a second CD-rom. The two electronic components greatly expanded the possibilities to interact with the material. For the examination, the student has to write a short paper about a small piece of research or has to review some literature on a certain subject. In addition he or she has to comment on the papers by two other students. The ingredients for these concluding tasks can be found in the electronic workbook and in the three The Observer projects. I shall demonstrate some of their features and potentialities.

Paper presented at Measuring Behavior 2005 , 5^th International Conference on Methods and Techniques in Behavioral Research, 30 August - 2 September 2005, Wageningen, The Netherlands.

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