Teaching oral surgery to undergraduate students: a pilot study using a Web-based practical course

The Internet has been used in oral surgery teaching mainly to deliver learning material across the World Wide Web and to make use of online interactivity resources in everyday surgical practice, such as by e-mails, discussion groups, and chats. The aim of this paper is to describe and evaluate a Web-based practical course on oral surgery principles, which was applied to undergraduate students. This course was investigated as a distance learning simulation in which the student would be performing surgical activities at home, and the teacher and the school environment would be absent. A Web site was created containing the course material. For this study, the students participated in the Web-based course in a multimedia lab equipped with computers and Internet, internal sound system and TV circuits. In the event of significant mistakes by students, the TV circuit could be used to show the correct procedure for all the participants at the same time. Microcameras were used to monitor the student's actions during the Internet use. Students' impressions were determined by a questionnaire. Computer manipulation with ease and antiergonomic postures were observed. We concluded that distance learning courses with practical modules must be considered as a special type of educational modality, with reference to the relationship between the student and the computer.