1. Introduction

E-Class provides a synchronized electronic learning environment. The main features of the tool are:


Lecture Presentation and Viewing: The course instructor's lecture slides are distributed to students' machines. The students follow the instructor's presentation on their individual computers and have additional features for viewing, drawing and communication through the E-Class software. Students may take over the electronic whiteboard when given permission by the instructor. Students have their own drawing layers which they can make public, and show the rest of the class. The student may skip ahead or back in the instructor's slides when viewing the lecture on their own system. However, the instructor may want everyone to follow exactly; E-class allows an instructor to synchronize everyone's slides with the instructor's view. Slides have an on-demand, expansion feature. This allows a viewer to expand and collapse bullet points and view extra content as needed.

Lecture Preparation: The user is presented with a simplified slide creation interface; E-class is not meant to re-create high-end lecture presentation tools such as Microsoft Powerpoint. However users do have the option of importing .ppt files created in Powerpoint. E-class has the added benefit of allowing the user to change the length of the slide. Normal slide-preparation tools constrain the user to a standard slide-size, and e-class allows variable slide sizing.

Attendance and administrative control: From the instructor's standpoint, the electronic attendance taking system allows students to log in to a presentation. The instructor's interface shows who has a question and who is present and absent. E-Class can synchronize with a university roster system, so that the list of expected students is populated. The instructor can invite/allow Guests to participate in lecture.

Student/teacher interaction: The instructor presents the lecture and slide presentation. This allows drawing on slides and expanding slide categories. They can hand off whiteboard privileges to students. Both the drawing tools and the layer tools allow students to draw over slides and do problems while the class observes. Students may also flag the instructor to indicate they have a question.

Support for outside-class viewing: A central server controls lectures and allows students to log in. Guests may be invited to participate in lecture with all or limited features at the lecturer's discretion. A chat feature allows non-present users to ask questions.

Further introductory material is presented in these subsections:

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