Link

Christina Brodersen University of Aarhus, Aarhus N, Denmark
Bent G. Christensen University of Aarhus, Aarhus N, Denmark
Kaj Grønbæk University of Aarhus, Aarhus N, Denmark
Christian Dindler University of Aarhus, Aarhus N, Denmark
Balasuthas Sundararajah University of Aarhus, Aarhus N, Denmark

International World Wide Web Conference archive
Proceedings of the 14th international conference on World Wide Web table of contents
Chiba, Japan
SESSION: Web-based educational applications table of contents
Pages: 298 - 306
Year of Publication: 2005
ISBN:1-59593-046-9

Abstract:
This paper describes the eBag infrastructure, which is a generic infrastructure inspired from work with school children who could benefit from a electronic schoolbag for collaborative handling of their digital material. The eBag infrastructure is utilizing the Context-aware HyCon framework and collaborative web services based on WebDAV. A ubiquitous login and logout mechanism has been built based on BlueTooth sensor networks. The eBag infrastructure has been tried out in field tests with school kids. In this paper we discuss experiences and design issues for ubiquitous Web integration in interactive school environments with multiple interactive whiteboards and workstations. This includes proposals for specialized and adaptive XLink structures for organizing school materials as well as issues in login/logout based on proximity of different display surfaces.

My Discussion:
Hey, it's our HyCon friends again, this time with an equally forward-looking scenario for connected mobile producitivity. They have left the ambulant restaurant user-review business, and in this paper look at mobile classroom learning. They use their mobile hypertext sensor-enabled (they call that 'context-aware') framework to create an application whereby students have document spaces on the web that are accessible from multiple kinds of terminals, and use mobile devices to add data to their own space. The facilities HyCon has for changing what is shown on any point-of-contact based on that point's capabilities and responses from nearby sensors is cleverly used to create a system where a pupil can see their document space on a big screen when they approach it with their Bluetooth-enabled phone. When a group approaches, all their document spaces become available, on the same screen, making it very easy to group them together and make shared folders accessible to all pupils in the group.

The scenario in this paper doesn't go into problems of maintaining useability when a point of service, like say the mobile handset the pupil is carrying, loses connectivity, but the tools used make this not be a tremendous problem -- the pupil would just upload the gathered data when connectivity was resumed, and connectivity can be assumed to exist once on the well-defined school grounds or at home. The use of the BT sensors for creating proximity-based logins on terminals does have some privacy issues, but again seems appropriate for the locations. (Do I want automatic log-in when I am walking past a computer in an airport? No. Do I want automatic login when I sit down in a classroom and the teacher needs to look at my stuff? Yes.) There is ample mentioning of other related work and refernces to issues like proximity-based logins. Alas, like the last paper, there is very little on actual experiences, since the system is not all finished. There is some discussion about proto-type experiences that seem to indicate that HyCon doesn't scale well, but the experiences gathered with it are useful.