The Intelligent Classroom
Be careful what you do; The Classroom is watching!
How many professors does it take to play a video tape? Here at Northwestern, the answer is "three". This is not due to our faculty being somehow intellectually lacking. Rather, it is because, in the lecture room where we hold invited talks, it is quite difficult to operate the various A/V equipment. The speaker will grab the nearest remote control and start pushing buttons; a professor will rush over to the "switching box"; and another professor will manually press play on the VCR. We have lots of cool A/V equipment, but no easy way of controlling them.
In the Intelligent Classroom, we are researching ways of providing more intuitive and natural control of a lecture facility. The Classroom tries to serve as its own A/V assistant: it watches the speaker as he lectures and also listens to what he says. If his actions indicate that the Classroom ought to do something to assist, the Classroom does what it deems appropriate.
We are currently building a prototype facility here in the Intelligent Information Laboratory at Northwestern University. This website provides information about the people and research driving the development of the Classroom. The Gallery section shows off the Intelligent Classroom in action, with pictures and (soon) videos. The Jabberwocky section describes an offshoot of the Classroom research which listens as the speaker gives a PowerPoint slide presentation, matching the speaker's words to the contents of the slides, and switching the slides automatically at the appropriate moments.
Maintained by franklin@cs.northwestern.edu
Last update: November 16th, 19101