Window control interface to attract teacher's gaze area for watching a reaction of remote learners

Abstract

We have developed the TERAKOYA learning system, which helps students study actively anywhere on a local area network (LAN) linked to multipoint remote users. However, if many students frequently sent their questions to the teacher, it is very difficult to correspond to quickly answer that for the teacher. In addition, the teacher hardly clarifies how much each student understood because he cannot watch students' face and reaction. This paper discusses the graphical user interface (GUI) system that is used a little ingenuity to prioritize students' screens through variably changing the GUI interface on the teacher's PC. The aspect of window that was displayed as thumbnails of the students' PC screen was zoomed dynamically each thumbnail by their understanding level. By sorting out their priorities on the teacher's PC screen, the teacher can timely observe the students' work and support their thinking process. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.