Education and demonstration – Science
Reexamination Certificate
2001-06-20
2003-07-22
Vo, Hieu T. (Department: 3747)
Education and demonstration
Science
C434S350000, C434S362000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06595781
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to computer-based educational technology and, in particular to a method and apparatus for the production and integrated delivery of educational content in digital form.
It has long been the objective of educators and educational technologists to incorporate information processing and communication technologies into the teaching process with a view toward enhancing the transfer of knowledge in terms of both effectiveness and efficiency. Within the classroom, prior teaching technology has ranged: (a) from the use of chalk boards to optical and digital display and projection devices; (b) from the presentation of live lectures to the supplemental use of televised and prerecorded video productions; and, (c) from the use of traditional paper-based texts, treatises, workbooks and tests to computer-based reading, research, exercises and testing.
Particularly in the areas of higher education and specialized training, significant efforts have been directed toward the use of technology in the presentation of courses: (a) that are attended by large numbers of students; (b) that are inherently complex or otherwise benefit from extensive supplementation; or (c) that are presented repeatedly to different individuals or small groups of learners at different times. Also, in the areas of higher and continuing education and in corporate training, substantial efforts have been made toward the decentralization of the teaching process with the objective of making quality education available to more students, at more convenient locations and times, and at a lower incremental cost to the sponsoring organization.
A small minority of academically accredited courses have been offered by means of a videotaped lecture coupled with traditional reading assignments. These courses have had the advantage of allowing students to learn at a time and pace most appropriate to their individual styles and schedules. Videotape has also been used to back up and preserve live educational simulcasts to students enrolled in television-based courses offered on a synchronous or real-time basis. Videotaped lectures make the content available to students unable to attend at specifically scheduled times, and to students unable to learn at the pace adopted by the lecturer. Various combinations of televised simulcasts and videotaped presentations have represented the dominant use of technology in the delivery of traditional higher educational content.
There have been numerous attempts to move toward the asynchronous or time-shifted delivery of educational content in ways that would allow multiple learners to receive the content at virtually any time. Multiple videotape copies of lectures have been made available for viewing by students at any time and this simple methodology has proven to be among the most effective and least expensive. Unfortunately, this requires the production of large numbers of videotape copies for shared use by students and even more if every enrolled student is to receive a copy. Videotape copies degrade with repeated use and serial reproduction. In addition, the shared use of videotape copies requires the availability of multiple televisions and videotape players that require ongoing maintenance and are relatively expensive considering that they are used in educational institutions as single-function devices. Further, it is practically impossible to change, edit, supplement or update the educational content stored on multiple videotape copies without re-recording the lecture on each tape copy. Televised lectures are the content and presentation equivalent of videotaped lectures, except they must be offered to students on a synchronous basis. Unless a student makes a video recording of the transmitted lecture (further degrading the quality of any incorporated text or images), it is impossible to start, stop or otherwise control the rate at which the educational content is delivered and the student must “attend” the televised presentation on the precise schedule set by the lecturer or sponsoring institution.
Videotape and television media are acceptable for the delivery of the audio and video components of an educational or training presentation; however, they are generally inadequate for use in conveying related content in the form of textual, graphic, written, interactive or similar materials. For example, when a lecturer provides supplemental content by writing or drawing on a black (or white) board, this content, if it is to be recorded or transmitted at all, must be captured on videotape along with the lecture itself. At best this requires means for zooming in on the lecturer's writing and produces an image that is low in quality and often hidden from immediate view by the lecturer's hand. In any case, the resulting image produced through non-digital video recordation or television transmission is significantly degraded because of the inherently low-density visual character of these media.
Currently available methods for dealing with the foregoing problem have included the use of two video cameras. In one case a first camera is dedicated to capturing the actions, words and expressions of the lecturer while a second camera is focused close-in on the lecturer's writings and serves to separately record these exemplifications of the lecture content. This methodology has a number of disadvantages. One involves problems in providing reliable synchronization of the two video cameras during play-back and another involves the allocation of screen resources between the lecture—which is continuous—and the lecturer's written notations that are entered on a sporadic basis. These problems have been addressed through the post-production processing of the two videotapes to create a single continuous tape into which relevant segments from the second camera (focused on written entries) are incorporated at appropriate times as inserts into the lecture tape. In some cases, the lecture video is run on a split screen or the written entries are shown full screen while the lecture proceeds on an audio only (or voice-over) basis. While these post-production effort results in an improved simulation of an actual in-class experience, the recorded or televised quality of the written entries is often so low as to accommodate only relatively large format (low-content) entries and images without significant visual or textual detail.
Sophisticated systems (e.g., Media100) are available for use in producing and editing video lectures but their cost, limited availability and complexity of use have placed them beyond the realm of practical adoption by most teachers, professors and trainers. In addition, the inherent low-density character of analogue video recording and playback systems has limited the ability to incorporate educationally meaningful text and graphic materials into lectures presented on videotape.
The visualization problem caused by a lecturer's hand being disposed between a second video camera and the board on which written entries are being made has been addressed by a number of products. One hardware/software package known as the “Educart” (by Tegrity, Inc of San Jose, Calif.) involves a relatively complex, two-camera optical system described in part in U.S. Pat. No. 5,528,263. This and similar products recently on the market are typically used to record short training segments which are augmented by standard Power Point (by Microsoft, Inc.) or similar slide presentations that are prepared prior to the actual lecture. These presentation slides are often used by the lecturer as a prompt (or outline) of the content to be presented. While these slides also provide the audience with an outline of the presentation content, they typically do not educationally supplement the content except by illustrating it's structure and order. Other currently available products for combining videos with Power Point or similar slide presentations are marketed under the names “Real Slide Show”, Real Presenter” and “Real Producer” offered by RealNetwork
Aspen Research
Cahill, Sutton & Thomas
Vo Hieu T.
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