Sept 18, 2003Naval Oceanographic Office Tablet PC’s in Classroom and Distance Education Richard Anderson Department of Computer Science and Engineering.

Sept 18, 2003 Naval Oceanographic Office

Tablet PC’s in Classroom and Distance Education

Richard AndersonDepartment of Computer Science

and EngineeringUniversity of Washington

Sept 18, 2003 Naval Oceanographic Office

Educational Technology

…in the winter of 1813 & '14 … I attended a mathematical school kept in Boston…On entering his room, we were struck at the appearance of an ample Black Board suspended on the wall, with lumps of chalk on a ledge below, and cloths hanging at either side. I had never heard of such a thing before. [Samuel J. May, 1855]

Sept 18, 2003 Naval Oceanographic Office

UW Educational Technology and CS Education Projects

Professional Masters’ Program Tutored Video Instruction Program Microsoft Research Distributed

Classroom Project ConferenceXP

Classroom Presenter

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ConferenceXP

Internet based distributed classroom

UW Professional Masters Program Classes between UW and Microsoft

since 1997 Used ConferenceXP Spring 2002 and

Spring 2003

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Spring 2002 Experience

Microsoft Faculty Summit Talk

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Spring 2002 Exprience

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What we hoped to achieve Increased interaction between sites Ability of remote students to interact

with the instructor Ability of instructor to engage remote

students Student interaction across sites No degradation of experience of local

students No System Administrator

Sept 18, 2003 Naval Oceanographic Office

What we hoped to achieve Increased interaction between sites Ability of remote students to interact

with the instructor Ability of instructor to engage remote

students Student interaction across sites No degradation of experience of local

students No System Administrator

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What went wrong

Technology and systems failures High cost of interruptions Loss of trust Room configuration issues Lack of control of lecture room Production quality

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Spring 2003 Experience

Microsoft Faculty Summit Talk

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Sept 18, 2003 Naval Oceanographic Office

In 2003… Applied resources to the problem

Improved classroom equipment (>$75k) Better Audio & Video Equipment Better room logistics (lighting, layout) Direct control over both classrooms

More people at University of Washington Improved software

Classroom Presenter with Tablet PCs Updated to ConferenceXP RP 2.3

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Sept 18, 2003 Naval Oceanographic Office

Sept 18, 2003 Naval Oceanographic Office

Classroom Presenter

Initial problem Develop a distributed presentation

space for use in a distance learning class

Later Many of the same issues / challenges

in large lecture classroom

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Background studies Studied UW CSE PMP

Interviews, Surveys, Observations Greatest pain in distance course

Presentation environment “PowerPoint is a pain for the same reason

it’s a pain in a non-distance course, the slides impose a rigid structure on the lecture and make it more difficult to adjust to the interactions that occur during it.”

“PowerPoint sucks the life out of a class.”

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Important features

Wireless Integration of High Quality Ink and

Slides Multiple views “Performance UI”

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Large lecture classes

Challenges Maintaining attention Communication Feedback from students Flexibility in presentation materials Conducting activities in class

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Sept 18, 2003 Naval Oceanographic Office

Classroom Deployments

Since summer 2002, it has been used in about 25 CSE courses

Intro programming courses to masters’ courses

Used at UVa and University of San Diego starting spring 2003.

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Results Observation, instructor comments,

some system logging Positive reception from instructors

Sustained use of writing through full term

Wide range of use Highlighting / Attention Derivations Recording comments Diagrams

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Positive reception from instructors and students Positive comments and repeat use by

instructors Student surveys

Student comparison vs. PowerPoint

less no change more

Attention to lecture 4% 39% 57%

Understanding of lecture

2% 52% 46%

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Instructor innovations and suggestions

Taking tablet to the audience Elaborate preparation of instructor

notes on second deck of slides Improved navigation (flyout from

thumbnails) Collective brainstorming

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Inking Study In progress

Careful study of recorded lectures to look at instructors use of ink

Comparison of the class taught with and without ink

Preliminary results A substantial amount of inking is ephemeral Simplicity of UI is critical Unexpected usage patterns

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Classroom Feedback System

Student feedback does not scale Encourage participation Ease of expression If the method does scale, how does

the instructor make sense of it

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Design choices Low attention requirements Embed in context of the slide

Slides are the mediating artifact Fixed feedback

Avoid having to compose questions Instructor control of feedback

Example, More Information, Got It Slow Down, Question, Explain, Cool Topic

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Experiment Roughly 12 students given laptops

to use in class 2 week deployment in CSE 142

4 weeks no intervention 2 weeks Tablet PC 2 weeks Tablet PC + feedback system

Extensive observations, logging, surveys, interviews

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Results Mixed results

Classroom culture not what we had expected

Instructor goals different than expected Interactions did increase

Pre CFS 2.4 (spoken) episodes per class

With CFS 2.6 (spoken) episodes per class 14.8 (feedback) episodes per class 5.0 (feedback – "Got it") episodes per class

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Sept 18, 2003 Naval Oceanographic Office

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Student inking support

Instructor broadcast slide Student inks slide and submits to

instructor Instructor selects slides for public

display Classroom Exercise Scenario

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Trace the path of Hurricane Isabel

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Five day forecast (9-15)

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Goals of class exercises

Participation Discussion Active learning Student contribution and

involvement Interaction Spontaneity

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Structured Interaction Presentations

Assume students have wireless devices

Build interactive activities into lecture

Computer support to overcome logistical barriers

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Why Computer Support?

Facilitate execution Unify design Enforce polices

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Why Structure?

Attain broader participation and more input

Achieve specific goals Spread cognitive effort over planning

time Mediate classroom activity Share activities across instructors and

across terms

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Example: America Before Columbus [Cross and Angelo]

1. How many people lived in North America in 1491?

2. How many years had they been there by 1491?

3. What significant achievements had they made in that time?

Your Impressions of America Before Columbus

1. About how many people lived in North America in 1491?

2. About how many years had they been on this continent by 1491?

3. What significant achievements had they made in that time?

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1. About how many people lived in North America in 1491?

2. About how many years had they been on this continent by 1491?

3. What significant achievements had they made in that time?

Your Impressions of America Before Columbus

% completed

% completed

% completed

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How many people?

From To400 2,500,000

0 10 100 1000 10,000 100,000 1,000,000 10,000,000

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“Solving” Natural Language

Problem: handling free text responses in class is impractical

Solution: “distributed student computation” allows rapid, in-class turnaround can be pedagogically sound

Significant AchievementsGet together with your neighbor and:

rate the significance of each achievement note if an achievement repeats an earlier one

Significant AchievementsGet together with your neighbor and:

rate the significance of each achievement note if an achievement repeats an earlier one

Repeat of:

Repeat of:

Repeat of:

Insignificant Somewhat Significant Very Significant Crucial Didn't happen in NA before 1492

Repeat of:

Insignificant Somewhat Significant Very Significant Crucial Didn't happen in NA before 1492

Insignificant Somewhat Significant Very Significant Crucial Didn't happen in NA before 1492

Insignificant Somewhat Significant Very Significant Crucial Didn't happen in NA before 1492

Insignificant Somewhat Significant Very Significant Crucial Didn't happen in NA before 1492

Significant achievements

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Acknowledgements Microsoft Research

Jay Beavers, Chris Moffatt, Todd Needham, Randy Hinrichs

University of Washington Steve Wolfman, Tammy VanDeGrift, Ken

Yasuhara, Crystal Hoyer, Jonathan Su, Shengli Zhou, Ian Li

Other Universities Ruth Anderson (UVa), Beth Simon (USD)

Sept 18, 2003 Naval Oceanographic Office

For more information

[email protected]

www.cs.washington.edu/education/dl/presenter