Combining Streaming Media and Collaborative Elements to Support Lifelong Learning

This chapter presents the educational value of streaming media combined with asynchronous collaborative learning and describes the particular characteristics and the limitations of the supporting Asynchronous Multimedia Collaborative Systems (AMCL). Then CELSIA, an innovative AMCL system, is described as an example of new trends in AMCL systems that come to address the limitations of the current systems and to enhance the educational value of streaming media! 1 The Use of Streaming Media in Education According to cue summative learning method [1] the use of various channels of communication and stimuli helps in the retaining of knowledge and in the acquiring of new knowledge and skills. Audiovisual material can be a great resource for education thus the last decades we have witnessed a lot of research and various attempts to utilize it in classrooms and generally in education. Several research educational studies since the beginning of the 20th century found that films, videos and moving pictures are very helpful in: [2] • attracting learners’ attention, • the presentation and clarification of complicated issues of a course subjects (e.g. natural phenomena via experimental demonstrations), • the retaining of information, • the motivation of learners for subjects connected to everyday life (e.g. news). Bowie in an analytical review of studies that concern the educational use of films argued that audiovisual material: • It is effective in discovery learning • It can be used for demonstrating the solution of a problem • It’s appropriate for developing skills of attention and observation of details • It can influence positively learner’s self efficacy • It improves creativity, imagination and aesthetics [3]. 20 C. Constantinou et al. Yet beneath the apparently unproblematic appeal of streaming media, there is a counterargument which states that these media -and video in particularis a passive educational mean which creates passive learners. The conclusion of a relevant research was that audiovisual material wasn’t successful in classrooms [4], except of foreign languages. In a first attempt to avoid passiveness, lecture material was broadcasted via TV to remote students while any questions or comments were posed to the instructor using usual telephone technology. This attempt was successful since many studies showed that students can learn as much from such broadcast lectures as from live classroom attendance [5], but suffers from a great problem. It is a synchronous model which means that everybody must meet at an appointed time and date. This model suffers from the fact that students cannot participate on-demand which means that it is more complex. Except from this, if the number of students that are watching the same lecture at the same time is big then the collaboration and as an effect the education value of the broadcasted lecture between them is reduced. In order to avoid these problems we can use an asynchronous model of communication. In an asynchronous model students can participate on-demand and the number of students who are watching the lecture simultaneously is reduced. This chapter is focused on the idea of Asynchronous Multimedia Collaborative Learning (AMCL), which is a relatively new concept although its origins can be found in a European funded Socrates ODL project, called SHARP: Shared Representation of Practice [6]. AMCL could be said to be a mixture of asynchronous collaborative learning with streaming multimedia content resources. AMCL combine the richness of multimedia representation and demonstrations of practice with the flexibility in the use of time for communication. The AMCL is a rather new education medium and philosophy, still unexplored. The AMCL systems almost look like the web-based discussion fora, with the addition that the user: • can post messages that are videos, audios (i.e. not only texts) which can be delivered via streaming technologies (like video on demand) • can annotate-comment on specific “frame” of the message (e.g. when a specific term was explained). Currently there are just few AMCL systems, most of them created for research purposes within universities. Some of them are quite difficult to use, luck of important functions or are specialized and limited in certain aspects. This is why there is a need to design and develop AMCL systems that could meet the requirements of end users. The structure of this chapter is as follows. First we will give an overview of the reasons why we need to combine Streaming Multimedia technologies with collaborative learning techniques. Then the current state of the art in the domain of AMCL systems giving emphasis on their added value in education as well as on their limitations will be presented. Furthermore, two learning scenarios will be described in order to show the importance of the AMCL systems in education and the need to be enriched with new functionality. Based on these scenarios the new Combining Streaming Media and Collaborative Elements 21 trends in AMCL systems that come to address the limitations of current AMCL systems will be analysed. 2 Combining Streaming Media with Collaborative Learning Video is considered to be by many scientists as an instructional medium that has a great educational value especially for visual and auditory learners. Video can create excitement, emotions, and help students to keep attention to the lesson. For example consider a group of students in a classroom that are studying china for the lesson of geography. They can view a video that describes china, listen to the Chinese language and traditional songs and “visit” great attractions in few minutes! The students will be more excited and motivated to learn and it will be easier for them to understand things that otherwise they had to imagine. In addition the video will enhance their retention since students visualize important information and transfer abstract concepts into concrete and easier to remember objects. Several attempts to use video in education have been made especially at the 80s and 90s mostly with the use of videotapes, television digital video and CD ROMs. According to [7] the very early attempts were mostly used as part of instructional pedagogy while at the 90s we have witnessed many constructivist paradigms especially with the use of digital desktop video and the upcoming streaming video technologies that emerged at the late 90s. The idea to combine Streaming Media (especially digital video) with collaborative learning techniques is based on the 3Ιs (Image, Interaction, Integration) framework shown in table 1 [7]. Table 1. The pedagogic framework 3Ι [Source: 8] Value Technology Control Image Film, Television, video Educator Image + Interaction Multimedia CD-R Student Image + Interaction + Integration Streaming media Student + Educator According to table 1 when talking for Film, Television and video the added value to education is “Image”. Students can benefit from the visual richness of video since it enhances attraction, aids retention and recall and is explanative when verbal forms are not enough. In addition to this Goodyear & Steeples note that video can provide vivid descriptions to articulate tacit information and knowledge difficult to articulate through text and verbally [6]. When the value of video is “image” then the educator has the control of the teaching procedure. Film, Television and video of course are very important in education but they are very passive means since there is no interaction between students and these media. 22 C. Constantinou et al. Streaming Media have another added value except from “Image” and “Interaction”. Streaming media can be linked with other supporting elements such as related videos, texts and resource links. According to the 3Is framework [7] this added value is called “Integration”. It is very easy to understand that all these elements enhance the learning experience, since students can have access to more information if it is necessary. Although streaming media are excellent tools for educational purposes they are still passive educational means since there is no collaboration and communication between the educator and students. The combination of collaborative learning and streaming media can be the answer to the communication and collaboration problem since the web enable various types of synchronous and asynchronous communication and collaboration such as discussion forums, chat and media sharing. We will focus in Asynchronous communication since it has some advantages over synchronous communication, the most important one that both Students and Educator participate in the educational process regardless of distance and time. The AMCL systems are designed to combine streaming media with asynchronous collaborative tools and so are ideal to enhance the learning experience and avoid passiveness. It is also widely known that students do not interact among them if there is no certain reason or motivation. Thus collaborative learning must be enhanced with other activities, in order to develop interaction, information exchanging and opinion and experience sharing. A first scenario that is commonly used concerns the presentation of prerecorder lectures and the ability to study and comment these lectures by students and educators that are geographically distributed. For example Dr. Latchman, University of Florida uses slideshows of pre-recorder lectures with synchronized narration [8]. The students can use email, chat or forum in order to communicate with the educator, to oppose an opinion or discuss for a certain subject proposed by the educator and related to certain parts of the slideshow. Fig. 1. Presentation of pre-recorded lectures with synchronized narration [Source: http://www.clickandgovideo.ac.uk/] Combining Streaming Media and Collaborative Elements 23 Another way that we can combine streaming media with collaborative learning is to collaboratively annotate streaming videos. For example consider the scenario where a group of medical students use an AMCL system that supports video annotations to analyze and annotate a heart surgery video. At first the educator can create annotations (e.g. text, graphical or audio) representing tasks in order to enhance motivation and develop interaction among the students! In order to complete their tasks the medical students can use various tools supported by the AMCL system in order to communicate, express their opinion and interact with each other. 3 An Overview of the Existing Asynchronous Multimedia Collaborative Systems AMCL systems combine the richness of multimedia representation and demonstrations of practice with the flexibility in the use of time for communication. The AMCL is a rather new education medium and philosophy, still unexplored. A well designed AMCL system supports functions specially designed for viewing and manipulating the audiovisual streaming material for the needs of performing collaboration learning activities and in addition the usual administration functions. Some of the functions that these systems support are: • Support of three at least types of users (Student, Teacher and administrator) • Conference management. This includes creation, deletion and modification of a conference by an authorized user usually the administrator or teacher. • Playback of audio-visual content for the current conference. • Annotating a certain frame of the audio-visual content. Annotations may be text, audio or drawings. • Support of a “user portfolio” where the user can store important or personal messages. • Advanced video and audio processing. • User and message statistics such as number of posted messages, types of messages etc. Various AMCL systems have already been developed and tested especially for learning environments. Some examples are stated below: 3.1 Project Pad Northwestern University developed a project called “Project Pad” in order to build a web-based system for media annotation and collaboration for teaching and learning and scholarly applications. It consists of various tools such as the “Image Tool”, the “Transcript Tool” and the “Video and Audio Tools”. The “Video and Audio Tools” lets you attach comments to time segments of Flash FLV video and MP3 audio streams. The tools can be used by instructors and / or student teams to critique student-produced video and audio or to provide a way for students to analyze scientific, historic, or artistic recordings. The tools feature a timeline that you can zoom in to mark detailed events or zoom out to annotate larger segments. Annotations are represented by markers that 24 C. Constantinou et al. Fig. 2. The “Video and Audio Tools” [Source: http://dewey.at.northwestern.edu/ppad2/09road_map.html] you can drag and re-size with the mouse. Attached text can include multiple fonts, font sizes, and styling. 3.2 VAnnotea VAnnotea is a Collaborative Video Annotation tool that supports Collaborative indexing and annotation of audiovisual content over broadband networks [http://dewey.at.northwestern.edu/ppad2/09road_map.html]. The tool was developed by the School of Information technology and Electrical Engineering of the University of Queensland in Australia. VAnnotea has a lot of features including browsing through existing online multimedia repositories using the embedded Internet Explorer Browser, viewing a wide variety of media formats such as MPEG-1, -2 and -4, WAV, MP3 and QTVR through embedded media players such as the Quicktime Player, Windows Media Player and Video Lan Client and annotating the media files by highlighting regions and attaching personal notes, questions, remarks, links and relationships to other resources, terms from ontologies or controlled vocabularies, ratings and local files such as images, or PDF documents. Vannotea's flexible design and metadata architecture allows it to be used within many other application domains, including: Biology (Integrative Biology VRE), Oceanography and Marine biology etc. 3.3 XMAS The MIT University has developed a video annotation system called XMAS in cooperation with Microsoft in order to support the study and comparison of Shakespeare texts, images and films. Learners and practitioners were able to Combining Streaming Media and Collaborative Elements 25 Fig. 3. VAnnotea A collaborative Video Annotation tool [Source: http://dewey.at.northwestern.edu/ppad2/09road_map.html] watch video clips of theatrical plays, analyze them and participate in asynchronous discussion through discussion forums. XMAS is currently optimized for use with commercially available DVDs as video source. XMAS allows users to rapidly define segments of film which can be replayed by clicking on automatically created links that can be saved in a list or dragged and dropped into discussion threads or online essays. 3.4 Video Traces The Video Traces system is another system that enables users to use video in a collaborative way. The system allows audio annotations on specific video frames and in addition supports video processing functions like adjustable video speed, pause, rewind and fast forward. The annotations are listed in a different window and can be sorted by title, author, date and time. The resulting product (video+ annotations) is called a “video Trace”. A video trace can be further annotated for a variety of teaching and learning purposes or exchanged with other users. The system was used in various educational scenarios like an undergraduate choreography class at the University of Washington. 3.5 iVAS The iVAS system is a system that enables users to associate any video content on the Internet with annotations. The system was developed by Nagoya University in Japan and supports a lot of features such as text annotations, impression annotations, automatic evaluation method of annotation reliability, video simplification, and video-content-based community support. 26 C. Constantinou et al. Fig. 4. The XMAS Video Annotation System [Source: http://icampus.mit.edu/projects/xmas.shtml] Fig. 5. The Video Traces annotation tool [Source: http://depts.washington.edu/pettt/projects/videotraces.html ] In order to evaluate the iVAS system’s usability and data collection, an experiment with 30 college students was performed. They used 5 minutes long video clips with various content such as news, drama, variety, and cooking program. The college students had to use the system to annotate the videos and then answer a questionnaire concerning the AMCL system. Combining Streaming Media and Collaborative Elements 27 Fig. 6. The iVAs system [Source: http://www.nagao.nuie.nagoya-u.ac.jp/ivas] 3.6 ISEE ISEE is another AMCL system that is specifically designed for low bandwidth network users [9]. ISEE supports the usual video playback functions, as also and video annotation functions. A full version of ISEE contains a video player, an interactive chat room, a built-in web browser, and a story board. When a user starts writing a note in the input box the system freezes the video and it continues when he press the submit button. The user can also apply time stamps that link the notes to video segments. The system was tested by university students. The students had to comment their colleagues’ presentations using the annotation and the playback functions. 3.7 KMI’s Stadium Another very interesting approach is the Stadium system of the UK Open University’s KMI. The system is based on Webcasting technologies and allows the users to send short messages (similar to sms) during the video playback. Several companies used Stadium to train their employees [http://cnm.kmi.open.ac.uk/projects/stadium]. For example the Wytch Farm Bp Company located in Dorset England used Stadium to train their employees for security issues concerning oil pumping. Several company employees watched a pre-recorded audio-visual content in their offices located in different places in the world such as Bogotá, Houston, London and Aberdeen. At the end the employees were very pleased with the whole idea and found the system and content very interesting and helpful for their work. 28 C. Constantinou et al. Fig. 7. The ISEE AMCL system [Source: 9] 4 Comparing the AMCL Systems Although the presented systems have unique functions and are valuable for AMCL they support only some of the required functions of a well designed AMCL system. Some of them are specialized in video annotation and do not or partly support collaboration or administration functions such as threaded discussions and message management respectively while some others do not support video annotation at all. Some of the most significant limitations of most of the systems are stated below: • Limited collaboration features • Poor support for Audio, Text and Graphical Annotation features • Streaming technologies are partly supported or not supported at all • Limited playback and video analyzing features • Multilanguage support is partly supported or not supported at all • In most cases these systems support only Windows Platforms • Luck of Vector Graphics support • High hardware and software Requirements • They support only some of the major video formats • Require users with advanced computer skills • Poor Help support In Table 2 we can see a comparison between some of the current AMCL system and a desired AMCL system. The comparison is based on five feature categories: Video Analyzing, Annotation, general and miscellaneous features. Many of the desired features were derived through hypothetical usage scenarios of AMCL systems in various research areas. Two of these scenarios are described later on this chapter in order to derive important service and functional requirements. The following use case diagram (Fig. 9 in Section 5.2) gives a graphical overview of the functionality needed by the desired AMCL system in terms of actors, their goals, and any dependencies between those use cases. Combining Streaming Media and Collaborative Elements 29 Fe at ur e D es ir ed A M C L S ys te m P ro je ct P ad V A nn ot ea X M A S V id eo T ra ce s V id eo A na ly zi ng M ed ia F or m at M os t I m po rta nt m ed ia ty pe s e. g. A vi ,m pe g, flv ,m p3 ,w av FL V ,M p3 ,W A V M pe g 1 -2 -4 , M p3 D V D M pe g 1 -2 -4 , A V I