Rationale Our goal is to utilize technology to bring back the student-focused classroom in a digital-projection based environment. Digital projection has its benefits: it allows for pre-prepared, shareable materials; it eases movement to other computer applications; and it scales well to large classroom sizes. But the "instructor-driven" lecture is practically dictated by the lack of flexibility in most digital presentation environments. The unidirectional nature of communication in traditional lectures presents challenges to the learners. Students are presented with a single view of the material (the instructor’s), with little chance for exploring and comprehending the material. If a concept is misunderstood, students may not ask questions because they are unaware that their understanding is incorrect or they do not feel comfortable speaking in class. If misconceptions accumulate, students may fall even further behind and lose interest. Conversely, students who already understand most of the material are also likely to become distracted in the course. Misunderstandings and disinterest among students are difficult to detect in a lecture-based classroom. We seek to re-orient the classroom around student communication and student learning. We claim that the use of a tool for public note-taking by a handful of students can address these issues for many students in the classroom. The goal of NoteBlogger is to engage students in many to many communication by supporting a public form of note-taking. Student bloggers communicate in real-time through a classroom-based blog and take input and feedback from fellow classmate blog watchers. While UP has been engaged in a large variety of classrooms from engineering to physics to math to economic to medicine, Note Blogging is being studied in the critical CS1 course, whose failure rates are andecdotally quoted around 40 percent.

Impact on Teaching We expect to see CS1 (and other classes) transformed from a model of instructor delivered information to a model in which students have a more prevelant voice in the classroom. The bloggers become another level in the communication hierarchy between the instructor and the other students. The ambient nature of this communication can facilitate peer instruction, with minimal distraction. Thus, NoteBlogger augments the instructor's teaching by providing a lightweight forum for students to "teach" their peers.

Impact on Student Learning We deployed NB in two university courses, interviewed both bloggers and watchers, and analyzed the contents of the blogs. Bloggers consciously established a range of public note-taking styles, from traditional note-taking that emphasized clarity and organization, to alternative explanations of the material, to problem-solving hints for their audience. Watchers used the blogs heavily and reported a positive impact on their learning experience. We found evidence that NB's ambient communication medium succeeded in actively engaging students in classroom activity, in particular by enabling in-class peer instruction with minimal distraction. In the survey that we conducted, two-thirds of the students who participated (n=48) in the introductory programming course indicated that they watched blogs during class (with varying frequencies), while many who indicated that they never watched blogs in class because they did not bring a laptop to class. For more examples, see a comprehensive overview here.

This project supported in part by an HP Technology for Teaching grant.

Shown above is the UP interface for watching and reviewing not only instructor slides and ink, but Note Blogger ink as well.

Quick Facts Dept: Computer Science and Engineering Courses Impacted: CS1 and many CSE, Physics, Math, Economics, Medicine, etc. # Students Impacted: 1000 # Faculty Involved: 5 core This project is funded in part by a 2006 HP Technology for Teaching grant.

Contact Us http://up.ucsd.edu William G. Griswold wgg@cs.ucsd.edu Beth Simon bsimon@cs.ucsd.edu

References & Publications For the most up to date list see: http://up.ucsd.edu/about/pubs/ Davis, Malani, Griswold, Simon. Preliminary Evaluation of NoteBlogger: Public Note-takin in the Classroom. To appear, WIPTE 2007. Denning, Kelly, Lindquist, Malani, Griswold, Simon. Lightweight Preliminary Peer Review: Does in-class peer review make sense? SIGCSE 2007. Lindquist, Denning, Kelly, Malani, Griswold, Simon. Exploring the Potential of Mobile Phones for Active Learning in the Classroom. SIGCSE 2007. Denning, Griswold, Simon, Wilkerson. Multimodal Communication in the Classroom: What does it mean for us? SIGCSE 2006. Buchanan, Denning, Kelly, Lindquist, Griswold, Simon. Technology-Enabled Active Learning: What to do in large classrooms with few devices? ASEE Pacific Southwest Regional Conference 2006. Wilkerson, Griswold, Simon. Ubiquitous Presenter: Increasing Student Access and Control in a Digital Lecturing Environment. SIGCSE 2005.