Abstract:
A real-time display method for the applications in an interactive teaching system is disclosed. This method provides teachers a way to transfer multimedia data from a host to clients of students and to simultaneously display the data through a network connection. It is of great benefits for teachers to mark important sections or to provide immediate calculations, tests, and solutions.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
         [0001]    1. Field of Invention  
           [0002]    The invention relates to a real-time display method for interactive teaching. In particular, it can be applied to an interactive teaching system consisting of electronic devices such as PDA (Personal Digital Assistant).  
           [0003]    2. Related Art  
           [0004]    The conventional teaching method uses data printed in books or paper as the teaching and learning materials. For students, however, these heavy paper materials form burdens to their bodies. In addition to the physical pressure brought by the materials, these materials have only fixed contents that may not be enough to cover all that a student needs to learn or sufficiently clear in presenting the relevant materials. Therefore, teachers play an important role in explaining the information contained in the materials. A usual way used by the teachers is to supply the students with more papers or notes. This then adds to students more burdens.  
           [0005]    Since E-books advocated by people have the advantages of essential no weight and providing multimedia data, using PDA to provide interactive teaching makes both teachers and students much relieved in physical burdens. The compact and light PDA can replace innumerous books, references, notes, tests, and commentary data. Therefore, they are truly a major trend in future teaching and learning.  
         SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
         [0006]    To solve the above problems, the invention provides a real-time display method for interactive teaching so that the teacher can write or enter multimedia data from a host. Such supplementary data are simultaneously displayed on client machines of students. Through the linkage between the host and the clients and the simultaneous display, the teacher can mark important places in the learning materials or provide real-time calculations, notes, questions and answers.  
           [0007]    In accordance with the disclosed real-time display method for interactive teaching, teachers can display information on client machines of students from a host through a network and solve problems or questions raised by students in real time. The method includes the steps of:  
           [0008]    logging a client onto a LAN (Local Area Network);  
           [0009]    sending a conversion request command to the client from a host of the LAN;  
           [0010]    converting the client into a real-time display mode;  
           [0011]    the host&#39;s receiving teaching information; and  
           [0012]    simultaneously displaying the teaching information on the client.  
           [0013]    When a student raises a question, the teacher can answer using the real-time display function. He or she may even forward the question and answer to all other students. 
       
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0014]    The invention will become more fully understood from the detailed description given hereinbelow illustration only, and thus are not limitative of the present invention, and wherein:  
         [0015]    [0015]FIG. 1 is a schematic view of the connections between the host and the clients according to a first embodiment of the invention;  
         [0016]    [0016]FIG. 2 is a schematic view of the connections between the host and the clients according to a second embodiment of the invention;  
         [0017]    [0017]FIG. 3 is a schematic view of different ways to provide teaching information;  
         [0018]    [0018]FIG. 4 shows the steps of the disclosed method; and  
         [0019]    [0019]FIG. 5 shows the steps in the real-time display of raising questions and providing answers. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION  
       [0020]    With reference to FIG. 1, electronic devices such as portable computers, mobile communication device, and PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) may constitute a teaching system. The electronic device used by a teacher (hereinafter referred as the host  10 ) and electronic devices used by students (hereinafter referred as the clients  21 ,  22 ,  23 ) are connected to form an internal LAN (Local Area Network). In other words, the host  10  provides the function of a server that administrates the internal LAN for the clients  21 ,  22 ,  23  to log on. It assigns and manages the privileges of the clients. The connection can be either wired or wireless (e.g. the Bluetooth technology). Of course, one may utilize a server  30  to be a network host to minimize the burden of the host  10 .  
         [0021]    As shown in FIG. 4, a client  21  (or  22 ,  23 ) logs on to the network first (step  201 ). When the teacher decides to use the real-time display teaching mode, the teacher sends a conversion request command to the host  20 (step  202 ). Then the host  20  sends the conversion request command to a specific client  21  (or  22 ,  23 ) (step  203 ). (The so-called specific client will be defined later.) The specific client  21  (or  22 ,  23 ) is then converted into the real-time display mode (step  204 ). The teacher then enters teaching information to the host  10  (step  205 ). The teaching information is then displayed on the specific client  21  (or  22 ,  23 ) at the same time (step  206 ).  
         [0022]    The specific client  21  (or  22 ,  23 ) is one on which the teacher chooses to display certain additional information according to the student&#39;s needs. For example, the class may be divided into groups for discussion. The data of each topic are then transferred to the persons in the assigned group only. For students who make slower progress and need special attention, the teacher can send more detailed and basic or simpler contents to them without displaying the same things on other clients. For students who can accept more advanced or challenging topics, the teacher can also send such information to those students only without giving others too much work to do.  
         [0023]    With the help of PDA, the teaching contents can be varied and more interesting. They may include such multimedia information as audios, texts, videos, pictures and animations. The sources of teaching materials, as shown in FIG. 3, may be data provided on an information website  120 , a personal knowledge database  130 , and a card-type database  140 . Of course, the teacher can use devices such as a hand-written panel and a touch-control pen to enter teaching materials. The teaching contents may be mathematical equations, emphasis points, class notes, quizzes, supplementary materials, etc. Taking mathematical equations as an example, the students do not need to copy them from the blackboard down to their notebooks while at the same time trying to comprehend the techniques. Using the disclosed real-time display function, the students only need to concentrate on the skills from their own client machines  21  (or  22 ,  23 ). Furthermore, the teacher can mark emphasis points on the teaching materials so that the students know what have been emphasized by the teacher. Thus, the job of taking notes becomes much simpler.  
         [0024]    If any student has a question during the teaching procedure, he or she can utilize the real-time display function to achieve the goals of interactive learning, real-time replay and sharing. With reference to FIG. 5, when some student has a question, he or she can use the real-time display function to ask the question (step  301 ). The host  10  of the teacher immediately receives a signal from the student and displays the question (step  302 ). Of course, there are different ways of asking questions: oral or text. For each question, the teacher can choose to answer directly to the specific student (step  305 ) or, to avoid the same question from other students, to forward the question to all other clients (step  303 ) for them to ask similar questions or answer this question. If one client  21  (or several of them) answers this question (step  304 ), the answer is then provided to the student (step  305 ). Therefore, the answer can be provided by either the teacher or any student. Not only can this answer be displayed on the electronic device of the answer provider but also simultaneously on the student who asks the question or even on other students if necessary (step  306 ). This method can also be applied for the teacher to ask questions in the class. In this case, the sources and transmissions of answers are exactly the same as the previous one.  
         [0025]    Effects of the Invention  
         [0026]    The invention is a real-time display method for interactive teaching. Through privilege management, the teacher can write or enter multimedia data from his or her electronic device (i.e. the host) and have them simultaneously displayed on the electronic devices of the students (i.e. the clients). With such real-time display between the host and the clients, the teacher can make marks in the teaching materials, perform real-time calculations, or write notes. Through the privilege control, the students can raise questions or provide answers which will be simultaneously displayed on the host. The teacher can directly reply to the student who asks the question. He or she may also choose to forward the question and/or answer to all student clients to avoid or stimulate other similar questions. If any student has a brilliant idea toward the learning materials, the screen of the client may be simultaneously displayed on the host and other clients.