Discourse Technologies, Inc., the leading developer of educational groupware, and SmartStuff Software, Inc., the leading supplier of desktop security and management software to schools, today announced the release of Discourse LabLearner , a pioneering new software product for interactive group learning. LabLearner is the only teaching tool that lets teachers easily create and integrate Web-based lessons with real time classroom discussions and assessment. How LabLearner Works Discourse LabLearner allows students to learn with the Internet in an instructionally appropriate way. The teacher starts by displaying a Web site on all student computers simultaneously.
Teachers can add customized questions or comments to each Web page.
Students can independently follow hyperlinks from a starting page to research lesson answers, but the teacher can bring all of them to the next page in a planned sequence of Web pages at the press of a button. In addition, Discourse LabLearner enables the teacher to display related lesson questions within the students browsers, and 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, meaningful 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 the lesson, answers to those questions and statistical information on the number and percentage of questions answered correctly.