The effects of this experience –which aims to extend the laboratory of the Binocular vision subject and optics/optometry studies in general to students´ daily life and to help students while in universities to be able to detect and value binocular vision in normal population and not only in laboratory conditions as well as to increase intellectual and scientific about essential questions on vision and optometry—have been very positive for students according to the persons in charge of the project. They assure that “they will generate lasting effects for the different classes of the subject of binocular vision of the diploma course Optics and Optometry”. A series of Internet distance-learning practices have been designed from this first experience, which can be carried out without depending on technological equipments or methods.
According to the authors, this Teaching Innovation project, approved by the Vice-Rectorate for Teaching Planning, Quality and Assessment, has achieved two of the objectives «economic aids to carry out teaching innovation projects (innovation and quality: action proposal 2002-2003)» inserted in the institutional policy of the University of Granada: generation of teaching resources (materials and technics) and boost to educational experiences.
The program, coordinated by José Ramón Jiménez Cuesta, is made up of a team of Professors of Optics of the University of Granada: Rosario González Anera, Enrique Hita Villaverde, Raimundo Jiménez Rodríguez, Francisco Pérez Ocón and Carlos Salas Hita, as well as Antonio M. Pozo Molina (scholarship holder) and María Teresa Cáceres García (office worker).
According to the responsibles for the project, one of the most usual complaints of the students is that they do not know the practical application of great part of what they learn at the university or they find difficult to carry it out experimentally. Another usual complaint is that many experiences have a strong laboratory nature, removed from practical reality.
In accordance with these premises –the persons in charge say- we intended to develop atraining for the students in their family environment and daily life to produce a higher motivation and participate more actively in their university education.
We also intended to develop a scientific-research attitude that we consider to be essential for any student on a degree or diploma course. In a previous phase, the teachers who take part in the project identified some of the experiences that could be carried out with the support of the research work on binocular vision and stereopsis developed by the Department of Optics of the University of Granada.
