The use of COCOON in teaching silviculture

At the Institute of Silviculture at the University of Natural Resources and Applied Life Sciences, Vienna, students learn to cross-link ecological, socio-economic and technical knowledge of maintaining, regenerating, tending and utilizing forests in a sustainable way. They learn complex concepts and processes most successfully when they are actively engaged in the learning process. Therefore, the principle of blended learning, a combination of online phases and face-to-face meetings is proposed. In this contribution, a brief description on the didactic concept of the courses in Silviculture, the features of the content management system COCOON, the authoring tool, the process of teaching and the way how students are supported by the integration of different learning objects is given. Rationale, challenges and pitfalls of the approach are discussed. 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.