WEB E-LEARNING SYSTEM BASED ON CONCEPT OF

ONLINE WHITEBOARD

Ana Hadiana, Tao Zhang, Vuthichai Ampornaramveth, Haruki Ueno

National Institute of Informatics, 2-1-2 Hitotsubashi, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, 101-8430, Japan

Keywords: Internet, Whiteboard, Distance Learning, Java, Collaboration.

Abstract: With the development of information technology, the implementation of distance learning has been

remarkably improved. The learning activity therefore becomes easier with higher quality via better

performance network. In this paper we introduce a concept of Online Whiteboard to support collaborative

activity in Web-Based E-Learning System. The Online Whiteboard is a common workplace for sharing

notes, images, drawings and chat over the internet/intranet, to support an effective learning of students in

distance learning. With this whiteboard a teacher not only can explain learning materials remotely and

synchronously to students who are enrolled in a course, as if in the conventional classroom, but also can

make communication with students asynchronously. Further, the proposed tool also has many advantages

for developing knowledge-based collaboration learning system.

1 INTRODUCTION

Distance learning using Web-based contents

delivery technology over internet or intranet is able

to provide a virtual learning environment, by which

anyone from everywhere of the world can access

and participate in the online learning or education

activity at lower cost in order to get more knowledge

synchronously or asynchronously.

Distance learning is one of alternative methods at

each level of education in order to improve the

quality and the productivity of education itself. In

the higher education, we will meet many problems

when using traditional education method, because

the participator has different education and working

background. Therefore, facilitating a virtual space

for learning where students can participate in it from

everywhere at their paces via network is one of

effective methods for solving these problems.

Collaborative learning is a type of a group

learning that plays important role in sharing

knowledge among students or between teacher and

students by transferring opinions (ALIC, 2002)

(Hadiana, 2002). All students can be motivated in

acquiring knowledge although they are learning the

same themes from the separated place connected to

internet/intranet.

We have been developing a learning system

called WebLS - Web Learning System (Haruki,

2000), by which teacher can put learning materials

on the website with various formats such as Word

file, PowerPoint file, and Adobe PDF file. The

teacher can also rewrite learning materials directly

using the editor tool provided in WebLS.

In this

paper, we introduce another tool, called Online

Whiteboard, which can facilitate teacher and

students to prepare and present learning materials on

Web in real time. It is also to support collaborative

learning activity among students so that students can

get more knowledge.

There are many advantages of WebLS with

Online Whiteboard when using it for distance

learning:

¾ Multi platform using Web browser supported

by java technology

¾ Supporting Multi document learning materials

¾ Collaborative learning

¾ Whoever, Whenever, and Wherever can access

the system via internet

¾ Open Source, to be developed furthermore

according to specific requirement in

performing distance learning.

Until now, our research focuses on the function of

online presentation that is really needed in the higher

educational activity, especially in postgraduate

program. Presentation on a theme in education is a

kind of group learning that students and teacher sit

together to discuss about a theme, while drawing on

a whiteboard with a variety of text, coloured-pens,

and shapes. Therefore, we are developing an online

387

Hadiana A., Zhang T., Ampornaramveth V. and Ueno H. (2006).

WEB E-LEARNING SYSTEM BASED ON CONCEPT OF ONLINE WHITEBOARD.

In Proceedings of WEBIST 2006 - Second International Conference on Web Information Systems and Technologies - Society, e-Business and

e-Government / e-Learning, pages 387-391

DOI: 10.5220/0001243103870391

 SciTePress

presentation tool called Online Whiteboard to

support such kind of group learning activity based

on Web.

In the following sections, we begin with a review

of related research works, and then describe the

concept of our proposed Online Whiteboard, its

design, and the implementation in distance learning

using WebLS.

2 RELATED RESEARCHES

Recently there are some similar works on Online

Whiteboard developed by many vendor of software,

such as NetMeeting (Microsoft), Breeze

(Macromedia), and Lotus Sametime (IBM). In

general, the Online Whiteboard tool in these

software applications includes the functions as

shown in table 1.

Table 1: Whiteboard System Comparison.

Function Net

Meeting

Breeze Same

Time

Drawing ○ ○ ○

Multi Pages ○ ○ ○

Navigation ○ ○ ○

Saving contents ○ ○ ○

Standalone and

Group mode

○ ○ ○

Annotation per page × ○ ×

Asynchronous Q&A

mode

× × ×

○: Available ×: No Function

All of the above tools are basically targeted for

supporting general purpose meeting, but not

specifically for conducting distance learning.

Therefore, they have lack of functions in supporting

education activity. For example, there is no crucial

function of asynchronous question-answer (Q&A)

related to the content of Whiteboard, because this

kind of function is necessary for supporting self-

paced learning after finishing presentation. Learning

on a theme should be carried out mutually during

and after online presentation in order to improve

students’ knowledge achievement. The Macromedia

Breeze has a simple annotation function just for

general content of Whiteboard. It is necessary to

facilitate an annotation function for each page by

which the presenter can augment the content with

further description, in order to clarify the

relationship between the annotation description and

the page content on the Whiteboard

3 CONCEPT OF OUR SYSTEM

In the higher education level such as postgraduate

program, the collaboration between teachers and

students plays important role to share their

knowledge and to change opinion each other about a

theme. This method not only encourages students to

show and to explain what they are thinking in mind,

but also it is useful to correct each other about their

accepted knowledge. Without conducting

collaboration the accepted knowledge would be

stagnant and have a lack of correctness.

One of the most important collaboration methods

in the higher education is presentation. Many

learning materials can be used for presentation, such

as journal, research report, et al. After learning these

learning materials, students can make presentation

based on their views on these materials. During the

course of presentation, there would have a

discussion organized by teacher, in order to change

opinions, correct understanding and extent the

relative knowledge by each other about a theme. The

discussion on the same theme can be continued in

different time asynchronously.

Therefore, our research concentrates on

developing a tool, called Online Whiteboard,

supporting such kind of learning activity. This tool

can be executed at many platforms of operating

system and network, in order to support Web-Based

E-Learning System. This kind of tool is necessary in

the distance learning system using general network

platform, such as Internet or intranet, so that many

users who will act as students or teachers have the

same chance to use it for conducting learning

activities in real time. This is the basic consideration

of our Online Whiteboard concept. That is, many

users are allowed to participate in collaborative E-

Learning easily via internet/intranet with different

bandwidth of network.

In general, there are two types of distance

learning methods: synchronous and asynchronous

system (Haruki, 2002). Both of them have their

individual advantages and disadvantages. The

presentation using Online Whiteboard is a

synchronous process to conduct learning process in

the same time. Moreover, it is also an asynchronous

process to review and reuse the results of

presentation. In the future, with the better

infrastructure of network, there would have more

demands on the real time software applications of E-

Learning, which should be considered in the

implementation of Online Whiteboard.

When developing Online Whiteboard, we have

solved the problem of existing different platforms of

network infrastructure by considering the different

network bandwidth, that can influence the access of

various speed of network

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3.1 System Configuration

The Online Whiteboard system has been configured

as shown in figure 1. It consists of three basic

modules as follows.

¾ User module: it controls user access, decides

the user mode and allocates user into a session

of course.

¾ Presentation module: it controls which data to

be displayed and distributed to all users in the

same session of course. Basically there are two

kinds of data used in Online Whiteboard; one

for contents of presentation, and another for

controlling the session.

¾ Data module: it has functions to manage data

used during presentation, and to save data for

reusing in the future when users need to review

the past presentation’s contents. Leaning data

includes uploaded learning materials, such as

PDF file, PowerPoint file, HTML file, TEXT

file, etc, that saved in the file system of Web

server. On the other hand, some of data

required by system to manage learning process,

text based chat data are stored in the database

server

Figure 1: Online Whiteboard Configuration.

The data of all courses used for Online

Whiteboard will be under the control of the Web

server. This design differs from other Online

Whiteboard systems, such as NetMeeting, Breeze,

and Lotus Sametime, mentioned in section 2. It is

considered to keep client users’ resources at

minimum, and also to make management of courses

easier

3.2 Features

The Online Whiteboard is benefit for supporting

distance learning, because the distance learning,

especially the synchronous type, needs this kind of

tool in order to assist collaboration between teacher

and students or between students in enhancement of

student’s knowledge understanding.

The benefits of Online Whiteboard in general are

including:

¾ Anyone, anywhere, anytime availability.

Teacher and students using computer

connected to Internet are allowed to access into

our system, and participate in learning using

Online Whiteboard. The system automatically

synchronizes the current content of Online

Whiteboard for students who participate in it

late.

¾ Combination of synchronous and asynchronous

mode of distance learning. Using synchronous

mode, users can select text or voice chat to

communicate between them.

¾ Multiple mode of education. As a standard

Online Whiteboard, it supports synchronous

online presentation in a group of users.

Additionally, users are also allowed to use

standalone mode when they want to review the

result of previous presentation asynchronously,

so that users can find benefits from the

previous knowledge generated from the

discussion on a presentation theme.

¾ Multiple purposes. This tool can be used not

only for E-Learning, but also for multiple

proposes of presentation such as online

meeting

¾ Adapt to multiple platform. Since we use Java-

based platform in the development of the

system, so that our system can be used by web

browser on any platform of operating system.

3.3 Functions

There are several functions included in our Online

Whiteboard. First, we created the basic functions to

implement Online Whiteboard similar to the

conventional whiteboard. In addition, we added

some typical functions of Online Whiteboard on

Web. The supported functions are as follows:

¾ Slide presentation for PowerPoint learning

material.

¾ Drawing various kinds of objects and writing

comments. All objects can be re-scaled,

removed, moved, and changed on their

properties.

¾ Multiple pages with navigation tool. Many

pages are available to support a course that

needs multiple contents.

User Mana

Sessions

Presentation

Data Mana

Whiteboar

Web Server

Serve

WEB E-LEARNING SYSTEM BASED ON CONCEPT OF ONLINE WHITEBOARD

389

¾ Storing all contents in the Web Server.

¾ Selectable modes are standalone or group

learning mode. Standalone mode is useful for

students to learn according to their condition.

¾ Annotation text per page, to write any

additional important description related to each

page of presentation.

¾ Chat by text and chat by voice tools. According

to the network condition users can choose one

of these two types of chat tools.

¾ Asynchronous Q&A function regarding each

page of presentation in order to improve

understanding of learning material. This

function is useful especially when student

learns at self-paced in standalone mode

4 IMPLEMENTATION

Online Whiteboard is basically implemented using

java technology of applet in order that it can be

executed in many client platforms of operating

system using Web browser.

As shown in figure 2, currently we have E-Learning

platform of WebLS. Online Whiteboard, which has

function of text and voice based communication

between users via internet/intranet, is embedded in

WebLS

Figure 2: Whiteboard Position in WebLS.

Online Whiteboard can be used not only for

distance learning using WebLS, but also can be used

as an independent tool for supporting other

collaborative learning system, because it is

developed as separated software module. It can be

embedded with other systems to perform online

presentation

4.1 User Interface

The main interface of Online Whiteboard consists of

two tabs: one for Online Presentation and another

for online Whiteboard. Each form as shown in figure

3 is divided into three parts

Upper part is drawing tools by which users can

choose various operation of Whiteboard, such as

drawing shape, line, and writing a text with different

colours.

Middle part is for displaying the contents of

presentation or whiteboard. It is the main frame of

Figure 3: Online Whiteboard Interface.

Online Whiteboard where user can create

important information during the communication

with others. Each shape is an object so that users can

easily change its size, move its position, copy and

erase it, and other manipulations.

Lower part is for controlling communication

between users. It consists of displaying page/slide

number, communication mode group/standalone,

and presentation navigator.

The other text based collaboration forms are also

displayed in the separated window as shown in

figure 4, where users (students and teacher) can

communicate each other about a theme related to the

course. These two forms are chat form and

asynchronous Q&A form.

Chat form mainly includes additional explanation

from the presenter to all participants about the

content of learning materials displayed on the Online

Whiteboard. If the page on the main Whiteboard

changes, automatically it will be displayed on the

chat form. It is also available to confirm an online

question related to the displayed page just by

clicking the button of question mark “?”

Q&A form is for users to make a text of question

regarding each page of Online Whiteboard. This

form will be appeared by clicking the button of

“AsyQA”. Moreover, the question and its answer

can be also done asynchronously after the presenter

finished the online synchronous presentation.

Figure 4: Collaboration Tool.

ebL

Intra/Inter

Teacher

Students

Whiteboard

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390

Preparation process of Online Whiteboard:

¾ User prepares learning material using PDF or

PowerPoint format in the local computer.

¾ After finishing the registration, user logins into

the WebLS.

¾ Create a new course

¾ Upload the learning material to the server

where the Whiteboard system exists in it.

¾ Open the Online Whiteboard and put a text of

additional explanation.

To participate in learning a course, the followed

process will be done:

¾ Access to the WebLS homepage, and conduct

authentication process.

¾ Choose a course that wanted to participate in.

¾ Choose presentation mode with Online

Whiteboard, then the system will set the

preparation for learning.

¾ Students will download the necessary learning

materials from the server. The learning

materials will be shown by a java applet form.

Online Whiteboard is ready, where teacher or

presenter will put on additional data related to

the course.

¾ Start the learning process.

¾ All buttons displayed on the below of

Whiteboard will be set enabled only for teacher

or presenter. That is, the control authority of

changing page/content of Whiteboard belongs

to teacher. The teacher can give out this

authority by clicking the button of “Teacher”.

4.2 Platform

Client-Server architecture is basic design in the

developing Online Whiteboard tool. Many users can

access into the server and use our system from their

Java-enabled Web browsers in order to view

learning materials and participate in learning. The

server includes components as below:

OS : Linux

Programming : Java, Servlet, JSP

Database : MySQL

Web Server : Tomcat powered by Apache

Others : XML, HTML

We have been developing our system using Open

Source Software, and Java is selected in our research

as programming language in order that the Online

Whiteboard can be executed in various platforms of

operating system using applet

5 CONCLUSIONS

Online Whiteboard is an alternative useful tool to

conduct e-Learning based on collaboration among

participants, in order to acquire knowledge as well

as to improve the quality of education using distance

learning on Web. Users can use this tool without

installing additional software because this tool is

developed using java technology of applet so that it

can be executed on many platforms in the client

computer using Web browser.

In current research we focus on Online

Whiteboard using chat of text and/or voice for

mutual communication. In the future, we will

consider other multimedia functions so that

collaboration learning can be facilitated with other

media such as video, etc. We are also planning to

add the function of recording voice and video as

alternative annotation tool. This kind of function

will be useful for teacher and student to prepare an

online presentation with text and voice in order to

make learning process more interesting and accept

more types of knowledge.

More experiments are needed to be conducted to

check and improve the performance of our system in

many different network platforms as well as in large

scale of learning environment. In addition, by taking

into account more users’ requirements, we can

develop more satisfied Online Whiteboard for

supporting collaborative E-Learning on the Web

REFERENCES

Haruki, 2000. WebLS: Internet-Based e-Learning

Platform for Higher Education. In Technical Report of

IEICE.

Haruki, 2002. Internet-Based Distance Learning for

Lifelong Engineering Education – A personal view

and issues. In Information and System in Education 1:

45-52.

ALIC, 2002. E-Learning White Paper, Ohm Publisher.

Tokyo, 2

edition.

Hadiana, 2002. The Construction of Asynchronous. In

Information Technology Letters Forum on Information

Technology, 1:249-250.

Microsoft, Microsoft NetMeeting Homepage,

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/netmeeting.

Macromedia, Macromedia Breeze Homepage,

http://www.avazar.com/macromedia/.

IBM, IBM Lotus Sametime Homepage,

http://www.lotus.com/.

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