A new dimension in thermal analysis

Summary An enormous development has taken place within the last five years in synchronous teaching over the Internet, i.e. both the teacher and the students are simultaneously in direct communication with each other as in a normal class-room or auditorium. With this concept it is possible to communicate orally, to exchange Power Point Presentations, documents, programmes and live web-camera pictures. It is even possible to use an electronic black board on which both the teacher and the students can work simultaneously. The great advantage with this type of teaching is that it is not restricted to a single class-room/auditorium with limited access, but in a virtual room accessible to everybody in principle all over the world, and which certainly open up new possibilities in teaching. The purpose of this paper is to present and to discuss the concept of virtual class-room teaching, how the system operates in practice, its advantages and, finally, how its inherent limitations can be overcome.