One Course, Many Classrooms: Distributed Learning with ConferenceXP

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One Course, Many Classrooms Distributed Learning
with ConferenceXP

• Chris Moffatt
• Lead Program Manager
• Microsoft Research

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Agenda

• Overview of ConferenceXP
• ConferenceXP Scenarios
• Case Study Distributed 4-way class between
  University of Washington, Berkeley, UC San Diego,
  and MSR

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The ConferenceXP Project

• Take advantage of Internet2 to create a simple,
  flexible, and extensible conferencing and
  collaboration infrastructure
• Collaborate with academia to develop innovative
  applications for collaboration and learning

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Approach

• Build research platform to support conferencing
  and the development of rich collaborative
  applications

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Approach

• Build research platform to support conferencing
  and the development of rich collaborative
  applications
• Collaborate with the academic and research
  community to build and prototype collaboration
  and learning applications that use ConferenceXP

Classroom Presenter
ConferenceXP Client
Microsoft OneNote
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Approach

• Build research platform to support conferencing
  and the development of rich collaborative
  applications
• Collaborate with the academic and research
  community to prototype and tests collaboration
  and learning applications that use ConferenceXP
• Foster a community of developers and implementers

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Design Goals

• Rich experience
• Integrate high-performance audio, video, and
  network technologies to provide an immersive
  environment for instruction, conferencing, and
  collaboration
• Scaleable and easy to deploy
• Support a simple single-computer-per-node
  architecture that can share high-quality audio
  and video between multiple local and remote
  locations
• Do not require a complex server-based
  infrastructure
• Support multicast to accommodate multipoint
  sessions and large classrooms

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Design Goals

• Extensible
• Provide APIs that enable the development of
  custom user interfaces and applications.
• Ease of use
• Easy setup and deployment (hardware and software)
• Simple UI to enable participants to join online
  conferences, presentations, and classes
• Advanced technologies
• Build 100 managed code on the Microsoft .NET
  Framework
• Integrate advanced media and display technologies
  in Windows XP
• Support wireless networks and Tablet PCs

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ConferenceXP Scenarios

• High quality real-time collaboration
• Highly interactive distributed learning
• Active learning in wireless-enabled classrooms
• Research platform

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High Quality, Real-time CollaborationConferenceXP
Client

• High-quality multipoint conferencing
• Peer-peer, multicast architecture
• Full-screen real-time video at 30 fps
• Built-in presentation capability screen sharing

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High Quality, Real-time CollaborationConferenceXP
Services

• Venue Service 2.0
• Light-weight web service
• Reflector Service 1.0
• Multicast to unicast bridge
• Archive Service 1.0
• Direct-to-database archiving of
• any ConferenceXP data

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Highly interactive distributed learning
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ConferenceXP Scenarios

• High quality real-time collaboration
• Highly interactive distributed learning
• Active learning in wireless-enabled classrooms
• Research platform

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Technology without learning science
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(No Transcript)
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Active learning in wireless-enabled classrooms
Classroom Presenter (University of Washington)

• Tablet PC Based Classroom Presentation System
• Deployed widely at University of Washington and
  other schools
• Integration with student devices
• Note taking (OneNote, RemarkableTexts)
• Classroom Feedback
• Student Submissions

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Active learning in wireless-enabled classrooms
ConferenceXP Capabilities

• ConferenceXPs peer-peer, multicast network
  support enables scalability to 100s of wireless
  devices in the classroom

Wireless Network
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University Engagements2004 2005 Funded
Research Projects
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Distributed Classroom Vision

• Stated Goal
• Four universities share a graduate computer
  science class
• Background
• Professional Masters Course taught by University
  of Washington
• Graduate Computer Science, targeted at continuing
  adult education
• Lecturers drawn from both University of
  Washington and Microsoft Research
• Scenario video

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1st Attempt - Spring 2002 What we hoped to
achieve

• Increased interaction between sites
• Ability of remote students to interact with the
  instructor
• Ability of instructor to engage remote students
• Student interaction across sites
• No degradation of experience of local students
• No System Administrator

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1st Attempt - Spring 2002 What we hoped to
achieve

• Increased interaction between sites
• Ability of remote students to interact with the
  instructor
• Ability of instructor to engage remote students
• Student interaction across sites
• No degradation of experience of local students
• No System Administrator

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1st Attempt - Spring 2002
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1st Attempt - Spring 2002 What went wrong?

• Technology Failures
• Network interruptions occurred during 7 of 9
  sessions, with most outages lasting 1 3
  minutes.
• Multicast reliability was totally unpredictable
  (land speed runs!)
• Short technical interruptions had a big impact on
  both sides
• Lacked reliable fallback solution

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1st Attempt - Spring 2002 What went wrong?

• Technology Failures
• Classroom Logistics
• Room layout, lights, microphones, projectors,

Screen 2
Screen 1
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1st Attempt - Spring 2002 What went wrong?

• Technology Failures
• Classroom Logistics
• Instructors and students
• Lack of familiarity with software
• Overly structured presentations
• Impatient, loss of trust

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2nd Attempt - Spring 2003

• Applied resources to the problem
• Improved classroom equipment (gt75k)
• Better Audio Video Equipment (plasma screens,
  ClearOne XAPs, quiet projectors)
• Better room logistics (lighting, layout)
• Fallback procedures in place
• 7x24 testing and monitoring of I2/multicast
• Improved software
• Classroom Presenter with Tablet PC
• Windows Media Gateway for async playback
• Updated to ConferenceXP 2.4

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2nd Attempt - Spring 2003
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2nd Attempt - Spring 2003
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2nd Attempt - Spring 2003 Results

• 10 of 11 classes had 100 two way connectivity
• Students and instructors more positive
• Despite the much-improved audio and video, there
  wasn't much QA with students at the remote site
• Down to one system administrator controlling both
  sites
• High quality archive had an unintended
  side-effect A few students who started out
  attending the live classroom eventually reverted
  to watching over the web, either live or at a
  later time. One said that he thought the viewing
  quality was at least as good as at UW.

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2nd Attempt - Spring 2003
Demo ConferenceXP Archive Playback of a PMP
Class
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Take 3 - Fall 2004 PMP

• Kept technology from successful 2-way course the
  same, and added 2 more sites
• Expanded course offering to students at UC
  Berkeley and UC San Diego
• Administrative logistics related to sharing for
  credit course between multiple institutions
• Dedicated technical resources at each site
  w/weekly testing and troubleshooting testing
  fall-back scenarios unicast reflector

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Take 3 - Fall 2004 PMP
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2nd Attempt - Spring 2003
Video 4-way PMP
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Live Hookup to UW, UCSD, and MSR
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Take 3 - Fall 2004 What went well?

• Technology worked superbly
• Software scaled very well from 2- 4 sites
• Multicast better understood, better tested,
  quicker troubleshooting
• Competent technical support at all sites
• Course was engaging and well received
• Instructors more involved than previous attempts
  since the course was not pre-packaged
• Instruction delivered from more than 1 site more
  than 50 of the time
• Instructors and TAs kept remote participation
  effective
• Unique learning opportunities
• Multi-site distributed learning is only partially
  about reproducing the in-class experience. More
  interesting perhaps, is the potential that exists
  for delivering a richer experience, through
  combining instructors , etc.

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What Next?

• Higher quality experience
• Students perception will always be that in-class
  is preferable, but can we / should we try to
  reduce the fidelity gap enough for students to
  become enthusiastic advocates?
• Combine rich audio/video capability with
  classroom technologies like Classroom Presenter
  deployed to student devices
• Studies to understand and mitigate social factors
  that hinder higher levels of interaction
• Enriching the experience vs. extending the reach
• Most interest in distance learning is in
  extending educational reach to remote and/or
  developing communities - so that every student
  can learn physics from Richard Feynman
• Traditionally, remote and developing ! high
  bandwidth, but this is changing rapidly
• Technical
• How to troubleshoot audio/video quality problems
  at remote sites. It looks and sounds fine to me
• Can we get rid of 4,000 audio processing device
  (s)?
• Continue quest for no operator required. (aka
  the big red button)

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Getting Involved http//www.conferencexp.net

• Join the ConferenceXP Community
• Deploy a ConferenceXP Personal Node
• ConferenceXP is being hosted by the Internet2
  Commons (http//commons.internet2.edu)
• Venue Service
• Submit a request to create your own venue
• Reflector Service
• Effective solution for multicast-challenged sites
• A fallback solution only
• Archive Service
• Kicking the tires only
• If you want to go further, deploy your own
  Archiver behind a firewall
• Talk to us about your ideas for cool,
  collaborative applications that can be enabled
  over ConferenceXP