Sometimes I couldn't even pay attention to what he was saying because I was afraid I would miss something he wrote on the board. But that was before Chin was introduced to Classroom 2000, a project that uses computing technology to allow students to participate more in classroom discussion by freeing them from the laborious task of writing down every word uttered by the instructor. The exact details of the lecture are captured on audio, video and in written form. Students bury their heads in notebooks, trying to record every word of the lecture, afraid they may miss something if they interact with the instructor. With Classroom 2000, classrooms are outfitted with an electronic whiteboard, audio equipment and video equipment that capture the classroom experience, allowing instructors and students to focus more on discussion and interaction and less on dictation.
Instructors write on a blank electronic whiteboard or on prepared slides.
Classroom 2000 captures the written notes from the whiteboard using a computer program. Electronic annotations, audio, video and even Web browser activity, are all automatically recorded and time stamped. After a lecture, the computer program automatically weaves the captured events together into a set of standard Web pages. A time line provides an index to the video, slides, and visited Web pages. While viewing a slide, students can click on the instructor's annotations to replay the audio and video at the time the note was written.