Converting PPT for mobile reception

In terms of making Powerpoint slides available to mobile phone, the following approaches have been tried and been shown possible (via FYP):
1. JPEG - Convert ppt to jpeg
2. XML - Convert ppt to xml
3. HTML - Convert ppt to html

These three are based on the fact that the mobile phones do not accept PPT format directly, of which most mobile phones belong.

There are handsets with PPT Viewer and can take on PPT format and display the slides directly.

- K O

Suggestion

Ken,

In order to fully utilize our PALE blog, I suggest you to blog your system update whenever new features are added to the server.

PALE2 function - comment

"Comment" is a function which allows users to write comment (some text) to each slide. I think we should rename this function such that it is more meaningful to the end users.

I suggest to use the word "My notes".

1. when user is viewing a slide, he/she may write his/her own notes related to that slides.

2. He/she should be an option to set whether or not share his/her own notes with others.

3. By default, the option is set to "public". (another option is "private")

PALE2 function - Feedback Form

This function should provide a mean for users to submit their opinions for the system. It is just like a guestbook or sth. Feedback may be sent to us via email.

Blog & VB 2005

I found the following article on subject:
"My.Blogs is a collection of sample code that shows how to easily provide programmatic access to blogs in your applications. Chris Mayo shows how easy it is to read and publish blog entries within Visual Basic 2005 using My.Blogs. Full source code is provided under "Related Resources."

URL: http://msdn.microsoft.com/msdntv/episode.aspx?xml=episodes/en/20060126VBasicCM/manifest.xml

Blackboard screen dump

The screen dump is related to the Lect Q&A and Lecture Slide Explorer.

ISAPI Rewrite

ISAPI_Rewrite is a powerful URL manipulation engine based on regular expressions. It acts mostly like Apache's mod_Rewrite, but is designed specifically for Microsoft's Internet Information Server (IIS). ISAPI_Rewrite is an ISAPI filter written in pure C/C++ so it is extremely fast. ISAPI_Rewrite gives you the freedom to go beyond the standard URL schemes and develop your own scheme.

http://www.isapirewrite.com/

Ken, you can install this freeware in IIS.

Regards,
Alan

PALE 2.0 Feature - Login/Logout

Ken,

Please implement the Login/logout function for PALE 2.0 as it is very important for capturing student's activities & their access log.

Try and coordinate with CS Lab for integrating their SSO (Single Sign On).

Please also capture students' login history as well.

Regards,
Alan

Title: Tagging Lecture Slide for Student-Centered Learning (TOC)

Title: Tagging Lecture Slide for Student-Centered Learning

1. Introduction (Teaching & Learning)
• Education quality – little resource (Alan)
• Student–centered VS teacher–centered learning effectiveness (Alan)
• Literature search (All)
• Cross-referencing in lecture slides – tagging (Alan)

2. Current Internet Trends
2.1 Web 2.0 (Alan)
• Decentralization of responsibilities from teacher to student
• Share of responsibilities
• Ease of use – AJAX benefits
2.2 Tagging Effect (Alan)
• Implications
• Examples

3. PALE 2.0 (Ken)
• System introduction
• Design
• Architecture
• User specification

4. Evaluation & Result
• Questionnaires (Before using PALE 2.0/After using PALE 2.0)
• Database analysis
• Grade comparison

5. Conclusion
• Grade improvement?
• Positive comments on PALE 2.0 from students?
• Enhance learning?
• Useful student tool?

Web 2.0 Roadmap

1. Tag
2. Comment
3. Rewriting Rule
4. Mobile
5. AJAX
6. RSS
7. Blog
8. Wiki

Feedback Form

Ken,

Please add a feedback form to PALE 2.0 so that users can submit their comments and feedback to us (either via email or anything other means)

Regards,
Alan

PALE 2.0 Database Analysis Plan

The followings are the information required for capturing student activities in PALE 2.0

• Student login history
• Student access history
• Tag by student
• Comment by student
• Tag by slides, courses
• Comment by slides, courses
• Etc

Database Schema V2.0

The diagram below is the second draft of the database schema.

Added: clickstream table for capture student access log.



Download Visio file here

Meeting agenda

A. System demonstration

• 1. upload and convert a powerpoint
• 2. find and display the converted slides by tag
• 3. display tagged slides and add tag to slides

B. DB schema

C. Paper theme

Possible theme:

• 1. how is web 2.0 applied into teaching and learning, eg. blog, wiki
• - For example, students can write some posts about his course in their blogother students can learn something from them
• - Decentralizate teaching process and students will have more chance to participate the
  process

• 2. What are the influnces if students can organize lecture slides by tag
• - Students can add tags and leave comments on every slide. (collaborative categorization,
  contribution)

Paper topic and plan

Paper topic
I think we may have two potential topics about the paper.
1. How can the Web 2.0 (architecture and applications) be applied to T&L process?
2. The influence of tagging on the roles of teachers and students.

Plan
1. Upload and convert part
Upload and update metadata of PowerPoint
Convert PowerPoint (*.ppt) to slides (*.jpg) and update database
Organize slides (using tags)

2. Tag
Link slides and tags via database
Preview and list slides
Search slides
Tags can be regarded as indexes. They include normal indexes (by teachers), tags (by students and other tags (by third parties)

3. Moving to mobile
Wait for student demo
Make preparation about mobile before demo

Asynchronous JavaScript Technology and XML (AJAX)

Anyone who has used Flickr, GMail, Google Suggest, or Google Maps will realize that a new breed of dynamic web applications is emerging. These applications look and act very similar to traditional desktop applications without relying on plug-ins or browser-specific features. Web applications have traditionally been a set of HTML pages that must be reloaded to change any portion of the content. Technologies such as JavaScript programming language and cascading style sheets (CSS) have matured to the point where they can be used effectively to create very dynamic web applications that will work on all of the major browsers. This article will detail several techniques that you can use today to enable your web applications to be more rich and interactive like desktop applications.

http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/J2EE/AJAX/

RSS (file format) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

RSS (file format) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Web 2.0

Followings are excerpts from Robert Hanson's Blog on what is Web 2.0.
Web 2.0 is:
- NOT any one technology, is an abstract concept
- a service, not a product
- about user experience
- about trusting user
- about user contributing to the content
- about large group of users, as wide a market as possible

AJAX and RSS

AJAX

AJAX allows web applications to update the user interface without switching other pages (stay at the page) so that the web applications response faster.

There are two main technologies used in AJAX (JavaScript and XML).

- JavaScript, display and interact information dynamically in the web applications

- XML, use XMLHttpRequest to exchange and transfer data asynchronously with the server (in XML format)

Here's an article about AJAX, it also compares classic and AJAX web application models

http://www.adaptivepath.com/publications/essays/archives/000385.php

Examples:

Google suggest

http://www.google.com/webhp?complete=1&hl=en

Google map

http://maps.google.com/

We may implement the search function which show suggested keywords and results instantly after user entering the word in textbox in PALE 2.0 (similar to Google suggest).

RSS

RSS is an easy and fast way to read news and contents (selected data) which are updated frequently.

RSS feed is the news and contents written in XML (the size is much smaller than a webpage)Users need a RSS reader to download and view the RSS feed.

RSS readers are available for PC, mobile phones and PDAs (mobile devices use RSS reader because the size of feed is small).

There is a free RSS reader.

http://www.rssreader.com/

We may make the comments about slide in a feed so that users can read the comments easily.

ICUC Abstract

Here's the completed abstract that have been sent to ICUC for paper submission. We all are part of the authors. - K O


Title: Organizing lecture slides from students’ perspectives with mobile access

Abstract: In university, lecture slides are commonly used to support teaching and learning. This usage is created by instructors in a form of presentations or class notes, while students make their own notes on the slides during lecture sessions as needed. Quite often, these tagged lecture slides would be the main source of learning materials for most students in preparation for tests and examinations. However, it is difficult for students to organize these materials as they are far apart after class. Further, effective techniques are not readily available to students for sharing their thoughts with their peers, for collective intelligence and hence for better peer learning thorough a syndication of student association.This paper presents a system to facilitate students to organize their learning materials (mainly lecture slides) efficiently and provide a web platform to share their knowledge and understanding of the learning materials effectively. To extend the lecture slides beyond classroom, the system is designed to have mobile access capability, including Wifi-equipped PDA and WAP-enabled mobile phone. The project utilizes the web technology of blog and tag. This helps students to organize the learning materials from their perspectives and to share the knowledge with their peers. The decentralization of tagging responsibility to students will better reflect the student perspectives. The responses from students would beneficial to instructors in improving the quality of their teaching materials.