Students now have an hypothesis, data and a conclusion and can practice writing a lab report. Pairs of students, using pen names, work together at computers that were logged on to Daedalus Mail prior to the workshop. The students are asked to write a short materials and methods section for the lab report. Students send their writing to the instructor and the rest of the class. The instructor accesses the work and can add a response and return it almost immediately.
Students attending the workshop can read their classmates' entries and the instructor's responses.
Students can then experience many different styles of lab report writing and evaluate the effectiveness of each. If time permits, students may continue to practice by writing the remaining parts of the lab report. Advantages of Using DIWE in Science Instruction Learning on the Daedalus system allows students to practice writing lab reports in a risk-free setting, before actually having to turn in a lab report for a formal grade. This experience can relieve many students' fears about writing lab reports. Honest critique of students' writing can be difficult in a conventional classroom because students often take the criticism personally.