Interactive Whiteboard for Collaborative Work - A Multi-agent based Solution

An Interactive Whiteboard (IWB) is a device that is a giant tactile and projection screen. It can be considered as one of the main elements for pedagogical innovation with information technology. IWB allows to transform the classical classroom environment into a working and learning interactive environment. This pedagogical tool is particularly pertinent in higher school especially in scientific teaching where it allows to better illustrate scientific approach thanks to the ability to record annotations in association with a time line. If the use of IWB seems to be natural in lecture, it can also be used in tutorial and practical class where collaborative work is particularly important. The collaborative ability is closely tied to the softwares used. Few software have functionalities aimed at facilitate collaborative work. This feature is the main issue of this article. To develop this ability, a multi-agent approach has been chosen. Multi-agent systems approach is one of the most interesting thanks to its intrinsic properties and features such as simplicity, flexibility, reliability, self-organization/emergent phenomena, low cost agent design and adaptation skills,... This paper presents the solution developed in order to make IWB able to communicate with each