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For students in Harvard University's Introduction to Computer Science class, coming to office hours has long been part of the routine. The course, which typically enrolls more than 100 students, combines lectures and sections and has, according to the Web site, "a reputation that, each year, does scare some humans away."
Be afraid of a novel experiment in the history of Harvard education: virtual office hours.
As reported in The Harvard Crimson on Monday, teaching fellows (Harvard parlance for TAs) for the course this semester will begin holding real-time, online help sessions for students this week. Using free, Java-based software, students can log on, chat with each other (via text or microphone) and even "raise their hands" with the click of a button, which adds them to a queue on the teaching fellow's computer.
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