The TE-BIRD (TabletPC Enhanced Beacon-Identified Realtime Display) note-taking system allows the integration of "live" presentation materials with student handwritten notes. My current work is in pursuing the situation where material is being projected via a computer. The goals are two-fold:

• On the faculty end, there is to be minimal setup time and few (if any) restrictions on what they are using as their presentation tool. The idea is that they can use their normal presentation (PowerPoint, HTML, etc) tool without having to make any changes. In conversations with faculty, the time of adapting their materials for use with a new system would be a deterrent. The current BIRD Server sends out a UDP beacon once every few seconds identifying itself and the port on which it is listening. The current version has the faculty member set the TCP port on which the server will listen. Once the .NET Framework is installed, install time is the time it takes to download the server EXE and setup time is the time that it takes to launch the EXE and then click on the button that says "Start Screen Server". Future versions will be able to search for an unused TCP port on startup and transmit a text identifier provided by the faculty member to handle the situation where more than one server is active on a sub-net.

• On the student side, the students are able to use a TabletPC, walk into the room and start taking integrated notes. They are be able to pull a current snapshot off the presentation screen at any time and take handwritten notes in a notepad area as well as make annotations to the snapshot itself with the stylus. There will be either two or three basic areas. In one version (see screenshots in Figures 1 through 3 below) there will be a writable surface with the screenshot and a writable notepad area below it. In the second version (see the mock-up in Figure 4 below) there will be a writable surface the screen shot, the notepad area and a notepad overview area. The zoomed-out notepad viewer will display a zoomed-out version of the part of the handwritten notes that have scrolled off the top of the notepad area. The current client implementation plan allows for automated discovery if the student and faculty computers are on the same sub-net but requires the (one-time per class session) manual entry of the server's IP/Port otherwise.

Figure 1a: TE-BIRD showing typed notes with soft keyboard.

Figure 1b: TE-BIRD showing typed notes without soft keyboard.





Figure 2: TE-BIRD showing handwritten notes.

In Figures 1a, 1b, and 2, a PowerPoint presentation is in progress. The student grabbed a copy of the slide that was currently on the projection screen and then made some annotations to the slide (index of difficulty formula). Figures 1a and 1b show how the student could take and view typewritten notesabout what D and W stood for and what the basic idea of Fitts' Law was to them, as well as a question that they had about the meaning of D. Figure 2 shows how they could accomplish their note-taking goals using handwritten notes.

Figure 3: Scrolled area example.

In Figure 3, the student writes towards the bottom of the writing surface and more room is automatically created and scrolled to.

Figure 4: Old mock-up of future overview+detail version.

In Figure 4, we see that the student has written enough to cause the writing surface to scroll. The notes that have scrolled off of the writing area are still visible in a zoomed-out overview area above it and to the left of the screenshot. The above is an early mock-up of this concept.

DISCLAIMER: This software is provided on an "as-is" basis, without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to warranties that the software is free of defects, merchantable, fit for a particular purpose or non-infringing. User bears the entire risk as to the quality and performance of the software. Should the software prove defective in any respect, user assumes sole responsibility and liability for the entire cost of any service and repair in connection therewith. No use of this software is authorized except under this disclaimer.