Livenotes: in-class collaborative note-taking John Canny Matthew Kam UC Berkeley CS HCC retreat 7/5/00

In-class collaborative note-taking In lecture format classrooms, attention is the critical resource (Norman, Papert...). Attention is best gained by interaction: with artifacts (the LOGO model) or with other students (the Stanford TVI model).

Approaches to improving learning in the lecture classroom Active learning –One minute paper, based on lecturer question –Muddiest or clearest point in the lecture –Reading quizes... Peer learning (Mazur) –Lecturer poses a question; students vote on answer –Students discuss with a few nearby students (2 to 4) –Students vote again; –Lecturer presents the solution: students get immediate feedback on their answers –Benefits from “polling” electronics

Livenotes Students work in groups of 4; communicate silently via pen or keyboard chat. Each group has one main note-taker; others add their own comments or questions to the transcript. Students can mark up a group transcript, the lecturer’s notes, or a non-archived window. One student per group works as facilitator or TA, posing questions to the others. Fits well with peer learning (instant polling or feedback to the lecturer).

The group transcripts include notes, plus student communications with each other. Remote live participants should be equally engaged: the chat provides the social stimulus in Livenotes Remote students can get easy questions answered by locals, or locals can ask questions in class on behalf of their remote peers Using Livenotes remotely

Note-taking is viewed as more than recording the lecture: –Some students take an active role in explaining to others –The lecture is related to other material that students know –Student hear multiple explanations of the material Fits with social theories of learning: Bakhtin’s “dialogical” theory. Understanding as the resolution of multiple interpretations. Livenotes theory

4 Students used Livenotes in a grad course in F99 on IBM laptops running Netmeeting on a wireless net. Reactions: –Overlay touch screens were bad, everyone used keyboard chat. –Difficulty in listening and chatting simultaneously only in first lecture. –After that, attention level higher. “No chance of falling asleep”. –Many notes: two parallel threads, the note-taker and the group chat. Group chat periodically comes back to lecture content as new notes appear from the note-taker. Initial feedback

Move to Vadem Clios with wireless: –Support both keyboard and pen note-taking. –Cheaper, lighter, batteries last all day. Develop custom software based on feedback: –Support conversation threads. –Include hyperlinks (or hyper-ink). –Include timestamping to allow synchronization with MM transcript of the lecture. –In-class “lecture rewind” was proposed as a useful feature. Next Step

Lecturer feedback: –Polling student answers to questions –Student writing activity: pauses mean confusion or important point? –Analyzing student transcripts offline: looking for confusion or difficulty. Guidelines vs. controls on the transcripts –Random chat OK? Or only on-topic notes? –Use a sample of transcripts for assessment? Future ideas

Offline organization of notes: –Collaborative filtering to match background, language ability of learner with notes in corpus. –ZPD principles to retrieve notes slightly more advanced than the learner. –Full-text indexing and search. –Time-indexing and linkage to lecture recording. Future ideas