[AG-TECH] Integrating SmartBoards?

John I Quebedeaux Jr johnq at lsu.edu
Fri Feb 24 10:47:00 CST 2006


LSU has been working on an  application that is a "shared" client/ 
server "board" and working on integration as an application into the  
toolkit right now - progress is being made there. We've used it for  
teaching across the AG in the state between Baton Rouge and New  
Orleans as a separate application but we're not quite ready to  
release it to the community before we address some issues here first  
with regards to property - we were slowed down some with the main  
site of development being inaccessible since Katrina but development  
has progressed now quite a bit although testing it has been limited  
to local use until our remote sites are all back up (New Orleans...).

We are considering showing it off at the AG Retreat... and i'm urging  
the programmer to submit it for SCGlobal '06 as a collaborative tool  
that works with and without the Access Grid.

Some of the features are:

supports multiple "pages", colors, pen thicknesses, etc
a "pointer" across all sites for those times you wanted to point at  
everyone's screens...
support for SmartTech's Smartboards
support for any desktop via the mouse
support for E-Beam (looking into this now)
recording and playback (tie this in with AGVCR and it should be a  
nice thing)
can import one imagine or  a "stack" of images (and/or powerpoint  
slides) - note you lose your animation capability, but it's something  
that was requested and used quite a bit by the instructors
works with multiple (not just 2) sites
can open word documents
synchronized web browsing (simple sites)  via the "board"

These are features that work now - the programmer, Doc Nguyen, is  
working on the AGtK integration now and we'll tackle multiplatform  
issues as well.

It's early, but based on these notes felt we should say we were  
working in this area on something. I'll suggest to Doc that perhaps  
you two might be on his list for "testers" when he's ready.

-John Q.

-- 
John I. Quebedeaux, Jr.; Louisiana State University
Computer Manager LBRN; 131 Life Sciences Bldg.
e-mail: johnq at lsu.edu; web: http://lbrn.lsu.edu
phone: 225-578-0062 / fax: 225-578-2597


On Feb 22, 2006, at 12:15 PM, Brian Corrie wrote:

> Hi Mike,
>
> I am afraid that we have not made any more progress on the  
> smartboard side of things. Still of interest, but fallen off our  
> radar as something that is urgent, and therefore hasn't been  
> developed any further.
>
> We have users that use the smartboards in collaboration, but the  
> sharing is typically done through our SharedVNC tool sharing the  
> desktop that has the smartboard controlling it... We would be  
> interested in any work being done in this area...
>
> Cheers,
>
> Brian
>
>
> Mike Bogle wrote:
>> Hi Everyone,
>> I’ve been trawling back through the mail archives to locate  
>> discussions on institutions/organisations that have succeeded in  
>> integrating SmartBoards into their room nodes, but so far I  
>> haven’t been able to find anything.
>> It seems that lots of people are interested in the idea, but may  
>> not have actually done it yet – at least that’s what it looked  
>> like a few years ago.  The closest I saw was Simon Fraser  
>> University ( http://www-unix.mcs.anl.gov/web-mail-archive/lists/ag- 
>> tech/2004/12/msg00088.html), however I got the impression they  
>> were running the Whiteboards along side AG (presumably using the  
>> software and/or technology that came with the WB’s themselves),  
>> rather than as an integrated technology.  (Am I right?)
>> Since then has anyone been successful in integrating SmartBoard/ 
>> Electronic Whiteboard technology (particularly smarttech’s  
>> stuff)?  And if so do you have any information available on how  
>> you did it?
>> We’re looking into setting up a room node at the University of New  
>> South Wales, but have not done so yet – so any help/experience you  
>> might be able to offer would be much appreciated.
>> Cheers,
>> Mike
>> ________________________________________
>> Mike Bogle
>> Educational Development and Technology Centre
>> University of New South Wales
>> Sydney, 2052
>> E-mail: _m.bogle at unsw.edu.au
>> _Mobile: 0418 197 599
>

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