The pen-based technology towards the lecture improvement

Abstract Nowadays perhaps the most widespread way of giving lectures at the universities is the slides presentation using computer and data projector. The common problems concerning this type of lecture presentation include one-way static transfer of information from teacher towards students, uncomfortable ways of active entries into the presentation, low students' engagement with no feedback, and static or no access to presentation materials. This contribution presents four years of experience in the effort to improve lectures using different presentation applications and several penbased technologies. Currently, the Tablet PC accompanied with Enhanced Classroom Presenter tends to be one of the most suitable solutions

SketchWizard: Wizard of Oz Prototyping of Pen-based User Interfaces

SketchWizard allows designers to create Wizard of Oz prototypes of pen-based user interfaces in the early stages of design. In the past, designers have been inhibited from participating in the design of pen-based interfaces because of the inadequacy of paper prototypes and the difficulty of developing functional prototypes. In SketchWizard, designers and end users share a drawing canvas between two computers, allowing the designer to simulate the behavior of recognition or other technologies. Special editing features are provided to help designers respond quickly to end-user input. This paper describes the SketchWizard system and presents two evaluations of our approach. The first is an early feasibility study in which Wizard of Oz was used to prototype a pen-based user interface. The second is a laboratory study in which designers used SketchWizard to simulate existing pen-based interfaces. Both showed that end users gave valuable feedback in spite of delays between end-user actions and wizard updates

The mobile information access experience - A user perspective

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.Mobile technologies, such as mobile phones, smartphones and Palmtop computers, are in an upwards trend and earliest models of such devices are already available to end-users to communicate and access multimedia content on-the-move. As a logical outcome of this development in mobile technologies and devices, content provider companies have already started investing and piloting mobile multimedia content distribution and broadcasting technologies. Nevertheless, no matter how cutting-edge technology is and no matter how stylish the mobile devices are, the ultimate success of wireless communication technologies and devices are directly associated with the user adoption and embrace of these new equipment and technologies. In this perspective, since multimedia content, for mobile or not, is ultimately produced for the education and/or enjoyment of viewers, the user's perspective concerning the presentation quality is surely of equal importance as objective Quality of Service (QoS) technical parameters, to defining distributed multimedia quality. In order to comprehensively understand user experiences whilst accessing information using mobile devices and technologies, we investigate user-mobile device interaction and look into the surrounding issues in a uniform manner by combining multiple aspects: user initial device experience (Out-of-Box Experience), mobile information access in a real-world context, device impact on user information access and perceptually tailored multimedia content impact on user information assimilation and satisfaction. Accordingly, an extensive experimental investigation has been undertaken to see how user experiences varied based on device familiarity, device type, real-world context and variable locations. The findings has shown that the overall perception, and effectively the user information access experience, is affected and improved when multimedia content is tailored according to user device type and context. Thus highlights that the future of mobile computing necessitates two-faceted research, which should combine both a user as well as a technical perspective

A Study of Digital Ink in Lecture Presentation

Digital inking systems are becoming increasingly popular across a variety of domains. In particular, many systems now allow instructors to write on digital surfaces in the classroom. Yet, our understanding of how people actually use writing in these systems is limited. In this paper, we report on classroom use of writing in one such system, in which the instructor annotates projected slides using a Tablet PC. Through a detailed analysis of lecture archives, we identify key use patterns. In particular, we categorize a major use of ink as analogous to physical gestures and present a framework for analyzing this ink; we explore the relationship between the ephemeral meaning of many annotations and their persistent representation; and we observe that instructors make conservative use of the system’s features. Finally, we discuss implications of our study to the design of future digital inking systems