Building Bridges Beyond The Classroom

By Konstantine Kyriacopoulos

Imagine you are a student in a class using a stylus to draw a geometrical figure on an electronic tablet. Projected against a large screen, students in another classroom are working on similar tablets. You tap the "send” button, satisfied that your conclusion is the best one. Almost immediately, you see examples of other students' work being projected, chosen from the instructor's tablet—even though the instructor and the other classroom are more than 6,000 miles away in Santiago, Chile.

Microsoft Research (MSR) and the University of Washington's Center for Collaborative Technologies (CCT) are working to make the scene described above take place between the University of Washington and a university in Chile, bridging the distances that keep students apart.

MSR chose the UW's new Center for Collaborative Technologies to be the premiere development center for the on-line learning platform, ConferenceXP in July, 2007. Richard Anderson, the director of the CCT, has been working with MSR to design the electronic tablets since 1997. Microsoft is providing $750,000 in funding for the effort over the next three years.

While videoconferencing is not all that new, the fidelity and interactivity of the new systems used in the scenario are. Anderson and Fred Videon, founding researchers at the CCT, note that the next enhancements to these tools, called Classroom Presenter and ConferenceXP, are soon to be released.

Prior technologies for videoconferencing and webcasting often suffer from significant video delays, and screens showing the distant site rarely give enough detail to allow instructors to read facial expressions and body language. Questions from both sites can be missed because the instructor is concentrating on the technology. Niguelle Pittenger, a professional trainer, notes that any method to allow more interactivity from the remote site would be a great help.

Classroom Presenter involves tablet computer screens. The tablets are given to students in the class, while the instructor's tablet can receive from all of them. During the class, the instructor's tablet can run a PowerPoint presentation, with slides on which the instructor can write or draw in front of the class. The instructor can ask the students to write or draw on their tablets and send their responses to his or her tablet. The instructor can then pick and choose which examples to share with the rest of the class.

ConferenceXP is a video/webcasting platform that can be streamed on-line or broadcast. Videon describes ConferenceXP as a combination of DirectShow, Windows Media, and Dot Net. He describes the desire for a truly robust conferencing system, with the potential for archiving class sessions for reusable lectures and an interactive, virtual study hall.

Anderson and Videon both point to the need for a platform that would scale either up or down to the provider's bandwidth in order to be accessed by users working with older equipment or the latest, high definition video displays.

Kosta Kyriacopoulos is a graduate student with the Center for Multicultural Education at the University of Washington.