Lecturelets: web based Java enabled lectures

The traditional lecture has, for a long time, been subject to significant criticisms regarding its learning effectiveness. Despite this it remains popular and several attempts have been made to transport aspects of its format to the Web. Many of these projects appear to have been ill informed and, like many pedagogic uses of the Web, under evaluated. This paper describes the design, implementation and deployment of lecturelets, small low-cost Web hosted lecture like presentations. One design intention was to include effective support for their evaluation and the mechanisms and intentions for this are described.