Development of Web-based Collaborative Environment For Distant Learning Supervised by Prof. Michael Lyu Presented by Ma Ka Po

Outline 1. Communication Environment 2. Web-based Education 3. MWPS 4. Proposed Enhancement 5. Design Requirement 6. Proposed Architecture 7. Problem Encountered 8. Future Plan 9. Conclusions

Communication Environment  Face-to-face meeting  Listening to other  Sharing opinions  Sharing paper works  Brainstorming

Web-based Education World Wide Web (WWW)  Bringing a new way to learn and teach  Allowing geographical distribution of teachers and students  Efficient delivering materials (both text and multimedia)  Control own learning pace  Advantages of WBE: Easy update course materials Available on demand Flexible presentation format

MWPS

MWPS (cont’) Construction Editing Management Web-based presentation HTML slides Streaming audio and video SynchronousAsynchronous Delivery of lessons

Outlook of MWPS

Outlook of MWPS (cont’)

Inadequate Feedback Lecturestudents Text, audio, video Text Insensitivity to lack of interest, understanding Unable to alter the pace and contents Teaching side Unable to view other’s response Inefficient to give feedback Learning side

Proposed Enhancement Adding multimedia conferencing feature - allows multimedia information (text, graphics, animation, audio and video) generated, transmitted, and presented in real-time on-line environment on both lecturer and students sides Develop collaborative environment in order to achieve efficient communication

Design Requirements Create customized collaborative environment (user interface) with the appropriate access; Incorporate distributed multimedia functions; Exploit the state-of-the-art audio, video and network technologies; Enable open collaborative applications (sharing documents, images); Set of separate modules (audio, video, whiteboard, etc).

Layout of Synchronous mode of MWPS

Proposed Architecture of Collaborative Conferencing

Problems encountered Support for continuous media  Dramatically increasing transferred materials over the limit of the bandwidth; Real-time synchronization  Difficult to maintain synchronous transmission manner; Multiparty communications  Lack of facilities to support for joining and leaving of groups at run-time;

Problems encountered (cont’) Hardware supports  Individual computing power may not support co-existing real-encoder and real-player in the same time;  Much more equipment are needed in students’ side; Training for students  Students with little experiences operating computer may find difficulties to use the system, as a result, losing the studying interest.

Future Plan 3Acceptable discarding frame policy should be introduced to minimize the demands on bandwidths; 3Corresponding facilities need to be added; 3Performance of synchronous should be addressed; 3Related training programs for student should be well specified.

Conclusions Effective collaboration between the instructor/student and student/student are crucial Inefficient interaction exists in campus wide educational environment Factor determines the fate of future web-based education Adding the conferencing feature try to improve the communication flow Lecture seems held on a virtual classroom over the network