Forum MATRIX is an asynchronous computer conferencing system that runs in a Web browser. This system allows user groups to share documents, including writing on each other's documents and making in-context pop-up notes. You cannot do this with e-mail, Web boards, nor most conferencing systems.

Use By Teachers

As part of the PEER program, we host a teacher conference that is designed to let teachers share ideas and resources (lesson plans, experiments, activities, and Web-site summaries). If you would like to join this group, contact the conference host, Dr. Betty Dabney at Texas A&M.

Use By Students

Schools or school districts may purchase a license to use MATRIX on their own servers, for use by staff, teachers, and students. An exclusive license from Texas A&M University has been granted to Forum Enterprises,  Inc., who distribute and support MATRIX. Compared with the few other comparable products of this type, MATRIX is significantly easier to maintain and costs much less.

Students will be best served if they can work in small groups on activities and projects through an Internet Collaboration System. They need a software environment that lets them produce, as a group, some kind of cohesive deliverable product. This might be in the form of a group plan, research project, report, or case study. Students need to annotate each other's input, as do teachers and scientist mentors. E-mail and Web boards do not allow these things.

Forum MATRIX runs in a Web browser. An applet allows users to check out documents for editing and making hyperlinks to other documents, pop-up notes, or to other Web sites outside of MATRIX (think of MATRIX as a Web within the World Wide Web). Each person can add text, graphics, sound & video clips, file attachments, and WWW links. These can be "imported" with the click of a button, so no prior knowledge of HTML code or other language is required! Pop-up notes are especially handy for teachers, allowing them to "write in margins" of electronic student papers.

Forum MATRIX keeps all information available online. Each user is required to provide a log-in ID and password. Each document has a certain level of access permission. Outsiders cannot intercept any information.

Some FORUM Links
Gateway to papers on computer conferencing | Select
Conferencing with FORUM | Select
Why MATRIX is better than using the World Wide Web | Select
Corporate Site | Select