Data processing: database and file management or data structures – Database design – Data structure types
Reexamination Certificate
1997-07-17
2001-01-16
Hong, Stephen S. (Department: 2776)
Data processing: database and file management or data structures
Database design
Data structure types
C707S793000, C707S793000, C434S353000, C434S354000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06175841
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to computerized systems for producing instructional, tutorial, and testing materials in an on-line computer usable form.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Educators, government administrators, and policy makers have recognized the great value of computers in education, and computers are becoming ever more present in the classroom. To date, the approach in producing educational materials for computers has been highly inefficient and expensive. Instructional designers and software engineers have been charged with the task of designing and implementing instructional materials from the ground up.
Some efforts have been made to use authoring software to produce instructional materials, such as the software sold under the trademarks AUTHORWARE and DIRECTOR by Macromedia, Inc. (San Francisco, Calif.). Similar software has been sold by Asymetrix Corp. (Seattle, Wash.) under the trademark MULTIMEDIA TOOLBOOK. Although such software has improved the process somewhat, it has not eliminated the need for software engineers. The authoring software available to date has in essence been a computer language which has required special expertise to use. Accordingly, the production of computer usable instructional materials with such software has involved investments of large sums of money for even relatively small projects.
What has been missing in the art is an efficient and inexpensive procedure for converting educational materials to on-line computer usable form. A common feature of most educational materials, whether they be used for instruction or testing, is the presentation of questions and the recording of responses in a paper and pencil form. Examples of this educational approach begin in elementary school and continue to the highest levels of education. Literally millions of pages of workbooks and tests exist having this form, and more are being created every day. The current approaches to creating computer usable educational materials have no practical way of accessing this base of existing materials. The present invention is directed to solving this important problem in the art.
DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
In view of the foregoing, it is an object of the present invention to provide a computerized system for efficiently transforming educational materials composed of questions and answers into an on-line computer interactive form.
The invention achieves this object by creating interactive computer readable “books” composed of computer readable “pages” which contain questions to be answered by a user. The computer readable books can exist on diskettes, CD-ROMS, portions of a hard drive, the INTERNET, or the like. The books and pages thereof are “computer readable” in that they can be read by a computer and presented to a reader on-line. In accordance with the invention, such books are produced by:
(a) creating a computer readable image of a page of textual and/or graphical material for the computer readable book, said page including at least one question requiring an answer by a user;
(b) displaying the computer readable image created in step (a) on a video monitor;
(c) selecting an answer format from a plurality of answer formats;
(d) modifying the computer readable image by applying the answer format to that image;
(e) identifying a correct answer to the at least one question; and
(f) storing the modified computer readable image and the correct answer in a computer storage medium.
Step (a) allows the author of a computer readable book to use existing “paper and pencil” type instructional materials. Specifically, in accordance with this step, all that the author needs to do is to scan existing materials in to a computer system to create computer readable images. Alternatively, the author can create a computer readable image using a word processing program, a graphics program, or a spreadsheet program. The computer readable image comprises a bit map, a metafile, or a similar data format capable of both display on a video screen in step (b) and modification in step (d). For ease of reference, the computer readable image of step (a) will be referred to as a “captured image” and the modified computer readable image of step (d) will be referred to as a “modified captured image.”
Step (b) allows the author to view the captured image in real time and to modify it while on a video screen to make it on-line computer interactive. A variety of video monitors now known or developed in the future can be used to display the captured image.
Step (c) is a critical part of the invention which allows the author to select an answer format appropriate to the particular question which is being made computer interactive. Examples of answer formats include underlining, placing a circle, placing an “X”, placing a box, highlighting, filling in a blank, filling in a blank from a set of choices, moving a portion of the image, connecting two portions of the image by a line or curve, and annotating a portion of the image. Other answer formats now known or subsequently developed can be used in the practice of the invention. The answer formats are presented to the author in, for, example, a list from which the author selects an appropriate format for the particular question or group of questions which he or she is working on.
In step (d), the selected answer format is made a part of the captured image thus transforming that image into a modified captured image. A variety of approaches can be used to make this transformation. For example, in a WINDOWS environment, the transformation can be made using such commands as Rectangle, Arc, Polyline, BitBlp, CreatePen, CreateSolidBrush, CreateCompatibleDC, and CreateBitMap to modify the captured image. Being part of the modified captured image, the answer format is provided to the user at the time the instructional material is used interactively. None of the prior art uses of computers in connection with the generation of instructional materials has included the capability to apply answer formats to instructional materials so as to convert those materials to computer interactive form.
In step (e), a correct answer is associated with each of the questions which has been converted to computer interactive form. Such a correct answer is needed during the use of the computer readable book so that the user's responses can be scored. The invention allows correct answers to be associated with computer readable pages at the time of the creation of those pages so that correct answers are always readily available for further processing.
In step (f, the modified captured image and the correct answer(s) are stored on a computer storage medium, e.g., a hard disk, a floppy disk, an optical disk, or the like. Preferably, the modified captured image and the correct answer(s) are stored in a common file, although more than one file can be used for this purpose if desired.
The computer storage medium, or a copy thereof, is subsequently used in the on-line administration of the interactive instructional material to the user. If desired, control of the number of uses made of the interactive instructional material can be achieved in accordance with the procedures of Loiacono, U.S. Pat. No. 5,293,422, the relevant portions of which are incorporated herein by reference.
Preferably, as the instructional material is being used, a record is made of the user's responses in a computer storage medium, which preferably is the same computer storage medium used for the computer readable book, but can be a different storage medium, e.g., the computer readable book can be on an optical disk and the user's responses can be recorded on a hard drive or other magnet storage medium. The recordation of the user's responses allows an instructor to monitor a user's progress and to prepare progress reports as needed.
In addition to associating correct answers with the questions of the computer readable book, video and/or audio outputs can also be associated with specific questions and/or specific pages of the book. In this way, the instructor can comm
Bookette Software Company
Hong Stephen S.
Huynh Cong-Lac
Klee Maurice M.
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