[AG-TECH] electronic whiteboards

Wed Oct 23 10:46:08 CDT 2002

I'd be interested in your opinion on the scenario work we did for CXP
Presenter.  See the overview video on the website for reference.

The concept there is that the collaboration space has 802.11b networking
and that many participants have a Tablet PC.  The workspace is shared
among participants and the aggregated results of the work on the
workspace is projected on the video wall in front of class (for those
participants who don't have a Tablet PC).

The current implementation is 'presenter focused' in that it was
designed for the 'lecturer in control' scenario to suit the typical
university professor's worldview.  We're expanding into new scenarios
with two other research projects, one at UCSC and one at Brown
university, to look at distributed control models for the shared
workspace.

Writing on whiteboards with mice is a bit of an exercise in frustration,
which probably explains why although it's easy enough programmatically
to implement mouse movement ink on a display surface that it's hardly
ever been used.  However, add high quality ink to a high resolution
display / digitization surface that uses active pens with pressure
sensitivity, and you have a whole new world to play in.  Make this
display surface portable and connected to other display surfaces over
wireless networking and the scenarios get very interesting.

 - jcb

-----Original Message-----
From: Osland, CD (Chris) [mailto:C.D.Osland at rl.ac.uk] 
Sent: Wednesday, October 23, 2002 3:04 AM
To: ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov
Subject: RE: [AG-TECH] electronic whiteboards

I'd be interested to know what people think about the human factors
of shared whiteboards - specifically hardware ones (e.g. Mimio)
versus software ones (e.g. the elusive 'wb'!).  What makes me think
of this is that we are already having to look at wireless keyboards
and mice so that users running interactive applications (visualizations
in our case) can sit in the audience (not the operator's area) and
still interact.

My first thought is that having a hardware board (with software
connection via NetMeeting or VNC or similar) polarizes the
interaction - one person at a time at each site will land up
in charge of the board.  This mirrors the situation in a
non-VC, non-AG meeting where one person stands by a flipchart,
but the AG is about doing things better!

The second thought is that with a decent acreage of videowall,
you don't actually need a hardware surface - the videowall provides
it.

What I'm wondering is whether some sort of solution exists with
everyone (i.e. each audience seat) having a mouse and 'writing' on
a whiteboard that is on the videowall and which is distributed
to other sites.  You'd probably need a small area on the screen
for each seat where that mouse could select the coloured pens and
the eraser, unless you had 5 button mice.

Don't know whether anyone else can follow my line of thinking here -
on rereading it the links are a bit tenuous!

Thoughts and comments appreciated.

Cheers

Chris

____________________________________________________________________
Chris Osland                         Office tel: +44 (0) 1235 446565
Digital Media and Access Grid      Medialab tel: +44 (0) 1235 446459
BIT Department             Access Grid room tel: +44 (0) 1235 445666
e-mail:   C.D.Osland at rl.ac.uk               Fax: +44 (0) 1235 445597

CLRC Rutherford Appleton Laboratory (Bldg. R18)
Chilton, DIDCOT, Oxon OX11 0QX, UK

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-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Daw [mailto:mike.daw at man.ac.uk]
Sent: 23 October 2002 10:24
To: Richard Coffey; Cindy Sievers; ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov
Subject: RE: [AG-TECH] electronic whiteboards

We've just started experimenting with mimios too. They're pretty neat.
VNC
works well in distributing the whiteboard, although there is a slight
delay
and you have to make sure you get the settings right.

However, I don't think these quite meet all of Cindy's requirements...

--Mike

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov [mailto:owner-ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov]On
> Behalf Of Richard Coffey
> Sent: 22 October 2002 17:50
> To: Cindy Sievers; ag-tech at mcs.anl.gov
> Subject: Re: [AG-TECH] electronic whiteboards
>
>
> Hi Cindy,
>
> We've been using the Mimio's via NetMeeting for several on campus
> meetings.
> The caveat is that NetMeeting needs to be running before you start vic
on
> the display machine. Otherwise, you can crash the machine and/or
> NetMeeting.
> I'd be interested if anyone else is using any other software besides
> NetMeeting to do this type of collaboration.
>
> -Richard
>
>
> --
> Richard C., SCI Evangelist
> SCI Institute
> University of Utah
> http://www.sci.utah.edu/
> 801.209.9304
> 801.585.6513 fax
>
>
>
> On 10/22/02 9:31 AM, "Cindy Sievers" <sievers at lanl.gov> wrote:
>
> > Has anyone used an electronic whiteboard on the Access Grid to
> share notes?
> > What are the issues associated with this?  What other alternatives
are
> > there? We are going to do a class over the grid and the
> instructor wants to
> > be able to annotate and write notes on a whiteboard for remote and
local
> > students to see. He would really prefer to write on his slides
> (which are
> > in LaTex and need to be converted to PowerPoint - another issue
> - is this
> > possible?).  Any suggestions?
> >
> > Thanks!
> >
> >
> > ============================================
> > Cindy Sievers           Los Alamos National Laboratory
> > sievers at lanl.gov        Group CCS-1 MS B287
> > tel:505.665.6602        Advanced Computing
> > fax:505.665.4939        Los Alamos, NM 87544
> > ============================================
> >
> >
>
>