Carl, I really appreciate your comment. I can respect that when given the right group of people and an interesting topic the discussion and the interaction can be great. My problem is that we have a very short period of time and it is a requirement to pass the test to continue in the program. That and it is really dry material. The other problem we have is there is not alot of technology to use in the begining of the course. We use some online material and some on disc. We are limited in what we can change about… >>>

If you give a person enough rope usually they will hang themselves with it. I think that connectivity to the internet can be a useful tool in a small group environment, however in a large group, in my experience, students tend to wander away from the task a hand either from boredom or from confusion. If you are going to give internet connection time to sudents as a tool I think the instructor should be equipped to view what each student, in class only, is looking at. This should deter the students from gravitating from the sites they "should" be… >>>

I'm afraid that no matter how hard you may try and how many and how diverse the tools you use are trying to keep today's average student interested when instructing a theory course is close to impossible. Personally though, I think that the average student has more knowledge about what we are trying to teach them than we are able to give them credit for. Yes, there are some subjects that the general student populace is going to be clueless about when they come in or may have a slight idea as to operation but that is the exception to… >>>