Netpals - Using The Web As A Telementoring Tool

Howard Rafal
BBN Systems & Technologies

Friday, January 24, 1997
11 a.m. - 12 noon
IMC TV Studio (Fuller Labs 126)

Mentoring is a powerful education tool that is used in schools, businesses and almost any organization. It allows for an experienced 'expert' to guide a novice 'learner' to become more proficient in some area important to the learner. Telementoring extends this idea by using the vast internet and internet tools to try and ease some of the work of standard mentoring. The network can give learners access to people that might otherwise not be able to participate in these programs. The BBN NetPals tool addresses a particular type of telementoring, direct feedback to work. The tool is a framework where students can submit work and their mentors can give feedback to that work. The system is quite general, allowing for the work and the feedback to take many different forms. All interactions are carried out right on the World Wide Web, so all that is needed is a simple graphical web browser.

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Last modified: Sep 27, 2006, 16:05 EDT