HOW THE TUTORIALS ARE CONDUCTED

Cassiodorus.org's online tutorials are live once-a-week sessions of one to two hours each, in which the students and tutor discuss the material being studied, go over the students' work, and preview the work for the next week. Using the conferencing software, the students and tutor log in to a server address at the stated time for the tutorial and then are able to communicate by talking, typing, and occasionally using other means of communicating such as the collaborative whiteboard and collaborative web browsing to map sites, image collections, online museums, etc.

The tutorials are supported by web pages for each class which contain all information necessary for that class. These pages list the course outline, reading and writing assignments and other work, announcements relevant to that class, and additional resources for the students to pursue; the student has access at all times to the class page.

In addition, the students and tutor use e-mail regularly for announcements, turning in written work, etc.

Setup instructions for Web4M

Since the 2003-2004 School year we have been using Web4M conferencing software. You can test the demo of the product at www.web4m.com/demo and click "Quick Start." Then accept the security request and wait while the Java files download (up to 10 min on a dial-up). This is a one time download, since the files will remain in your cache memory until the next time you want to join a Web4M conference. If for some reason the Java does not work on your computer go to www.java.com and download and install the free plugin from Sun Microsystems. Occassionally a network or firewall will cause some problems with some of the conference functions. For more techincal help or answers please call me 208-882-0423.