Crystal Hoyer

In this paper, we present a study of how instructors draw diagrams in the process of delivering lectures. We are motivated by wanting to understand challenges and opportunities for automatically analyzing diagrams, and to use this to improve tools to support the delivery of presentations and the viewing of archived lectures. The study was conducted by analyzing a large group of examples of diagrams collected from real lectures that were delivered from a Tablet PC. The main result of the paper… Show more

In this paper, we present a study of how instructors draw diagrams in the process of delivering lectures. We are motivated by wanting to understand challenges and opportunities for automatically analyzing diagrams, and to use this to improve tools to support the delivery of presentations and the viewing of archived lectures. The study was conducted by analyzing a large group of examples of diagrams collected from real lectures that were delivered from a Tablet PC. The main result of the paper is the identification of three specific challenges in analyzing spontaneous instructor diagrams: separating the diagram from its annotations and other surrounding ink, identifying phases in discussion of a diagram, and constructing the active context in a diagram. Show less

Computer Science and Computer Engineering programs across the country are increasingly
concerned about the lack of women pursuing computer-related fields. To address this issue, we
created a one credit seminar focused on the recruitment and retention of women in technology.
The seminar targeted undergraduate women who were co-enrolled in introductory programming
at a four year research institution. For approximately $500 per quarter, a staff member and an
undergraduate teaching… Show more

Computer Science and Computer Engineering programs across the country are increasingly
concerned about the lack of women pursuing computer-related fields. To address this issue, we
created a one credit seminar focused on the recruitment and retention of women in technology.
The seminar targeted undergraduate women who were co-enrolled in introductory programming
at a four year research institution. For approximately $500 per quarter, a staff member and an
undergraduate teaching assistant ran the Women in Computer Science and Engineering WICSE)
seminar. The syllabus was shaped by the instructors’ personal experiences, and research studies
on gender disparity in computer science and engineering. Throughout the quarter we brought in
guest speakers, visited research projects, and held discussions. Our activities concentrated on
fostering a sense of community, encouraging a wider and more accurate view of computer
engineering, and offering a safe environment for discussion and debate. At the end of each
quarter we surveyed the students and found that they had uniformly positive reactions to the
seminar. The women felt more comfortable in their programming course and became excited
about the field of computing. Our paper will outline what we learned during our first three
offerings of the course, and how we plan to improve upon our experience in the future. We will
show how we developed creative solutions to support women in technology with minimal
department resources. Show less

We are interested in understanding how digital ink and speech are used together in presentation. Our long range goal is to develop tools to analyze the ink and speech channels of recorded lectures. As a first step in this process, we are making a detailed study of instructors’ digital ink usage in real university lectures. This work is being done in the context of a Tablet-PC based presentation system we have developed, but is applicable to other systems which record digital ink and speech. In… Show more

We are interested in understanding how digital ink and speech are used together in presentation. Our long range goal is to develop tools to analyze the ink and speech channels of recorded lectures. As a first step in this process, we are making a detailed study of instructors’ digital ink usage in real university lectures. This work is being done in the context of a Tablet-PC based presentation system we have developed, but is applicable to other systems which record digital ink and speech. In this paper we concentrate on how instructors draw and use diagrams in the process of lecture delivery and
identify phenomena which are important when automatically processing the diagrammatic ink. Show less

There has been much research on the benefits of active and collaborative learning and in its use in computer science courses. As classroom technology becomes more prevalent it is natural to develop systems that support the use of these techniques. We have developed such a system as an extension to Classroom Presenter [2], a Tablet PC-based presentation system. In our system students (or groups of students) are equipped with tablet computers and at various points during the lecture, are asked to… Show more

There has been much research on the benefits of active and collaborative learning and in its use in computer science courses. As classroom technology becomes more prevalent it is natural to develop systems that support the use of these techniques. We have developed such a system as an extension to Classroom Presenter [2], a Tablet PC-based presentation system. In our system students (or groups of students) are equipped with tablet computers and at various points during the lecture, are asked to solve a problem or respond to a question. Students respond by writing their solution on the tablet and submitting it wirelessly to the instructor. The instructor can view all student responses, select one or more to display to the class, and annotate responses with ink as they are being displayed. Student responses can be saved for review after lecture by the instructor or made available electronically to the
students. In this paper we describe the system and our initial experiences using the system in two classes (CS1 and Computer Ethics) at the University of San Diego in Fall 2003. Show less

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… Show more

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. Show less

In this paper, we report on an empirical exploration of digital ink and speech usage in lecture presentation. We studied the video archives of five Master’s level Computer Science courses to understand how instructors use ink and speech together while lecturing, and to evaluate techniques for analyzing digital ink.
Our interest in understanding how ink and speech are used together is to inform the development of future tools for supporting classroom presentation, distance education, and… Show more

In this paper, we report on an empirical exploration of digital ink and speech usage in lecture presentation. We studied the video archives of five Master’s level Computer Science courses to understand how instructors use ink and speech together while lecturing, and to evaluate techniques for analyzing digital ink.
Our interest in understanding how ink and speech are used together is to inform the development of future tools for supporting classroom presentation, distance education, and viewing of archived lectures. We want to make it easier to interact with electronic materials and to extract information from
them. We want to provide an empirical basis for addressing challenging problems such as automatically generating full text transcripts of lectures, matching speaker audio with slide content,
and recognizing the meaning of the instructor’s ink. Our results include an evaluation of handwritten word recognition in the lecture domain, an approach for associating attentional marks with content, an analysis of linkage between speech and ink, and an application of recognition techniques to infer speaker actions. Show less

We have developed and deployed a lecture presentation system called Classroom Presenter in which the instructor uses a Tablet PC as a presentation device. The system has been deployed in courses at the University of Washington, University of Virginia, and the University of San Diego, and has been favorably received by students and instructors. In this paper we present an overview of the system and discuss particular uses and advantages of the system in small and large lectures as well as… Show more

We have developed and deployed a lecture presentation system called Classroom Presenter in which the instructor uses a Tablet PC as a presentation device. The system has been deployed in courses at the University of Washington, University of Virginia, and the University of San Diego, and has been favorably received by students and instructors. In this paper we present an overview of the system and discuss particular uses and advantages of the system in small and large lectures as well as distance education scenarios. We discuss two system features in greater detail, a facility for supporting multiple versions of slides for instructor notes, and a facility for delivering student feedback in real time to the instructor. We report on in class use of these facilities. Show less