PAPER Special Section on Cyberworlds “Web-Com”: Interactive Browser for Web-Based Education

SUMMARY We developed a Web-based education system called “Web-Com”. It supports synchronous and asynchronous learning. It consists of an interactive web browser and voice server. Web-Com provides a multi-layer drawable canvas on which the user can draw annotations. Each layer can be shared with other users in real-time via the Internet to enable synchronous learning. In conjunction with the voice server, Web-Com can support voice communication. It can also replay the process of annotation in order, which enables asynchronous learning. Finally, a subject experiment is conducted to evaluate the scheme’s workability and explore various issues that arise during the course of learning. The experimental results show that learners can learn fairly interactively with an instructor in a Web-Based class using Web-Com’s synchronous style. key words: web-based class, annotation, multiple layer, synchronous, asynchronou