Livenotes: inclass collaborative notetaking

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Livenotes in-class collaborative note-taking

• John Canny
• Matthew Kam
• UC Berkeley CS
• HCC retreat 7/5/00

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In-class collaborative note-taking

• In lecture format classrooms, attention is the
  critical resource (Norman, Papert...).
• Attention is best gained by interaction with
  artifacts (the LOGO model) or with other students
  (the Stanford TVI model).

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Approaches to improving learning in the lecture
classroom

• Active learning
• One minute paper, based on lecturer question
• Muddiest or clearest point in the lecture
• Reading quizes...
• Peer learning (Mazur)
• Lecturer poses a question students vote on
  answer
• Students discuss with a few nearby students (2 to
  4)
• Students vote again
• Lecturer presents the solution students get
  immediate feedback on their answers
• Benefits from polling electronics

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Livenotes

• Students work in groups of 4 communicate
  silently via pen or keyboard chat.
• Each group has one main note-taker others add
  their own comments or questions to the
  transcript.
• Students can mark up a group transcript, the
  lecturers notes, or a non-archived window.
• One student per group works as facilitator or TA,
  posing questions to the others.
• Fits well with peer learning (instant polling or
  feedback to the lecturer).

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Using Livenotes remotely

• The group transcripts include notes, plus student
  communications with each other.
• Remote live participants should be equally
  engaged the chat provides the social stimulus in
  Livenotes
• Remote students can get easyquestions answered
  by locals, orlocals can ask questions in
  classon behalf of their remote peers

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Livenotes theory

• Note-taking is viewed as more than recording the
  lecture
• Some students take an active role in explaining
  to others
• The lecture is related to other material that
  students know
• Student hear multiple explanations of the
  material
• Fits with social theories of learning Bakhtins
  dialogical theory. Understanding as the
  resolution of multiple interpretations.

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Initial feedback

• 4 Students used Livenotes in a grad course in F99
  on IBM laptops running Netmeeting on a wireless
  net.
• Reactions
• Overlay touch screens were bad, everyone used
  keyboard chat.
• Difficulty in listening and chatting
  simultaneously only in first lecture.
• After that, attention level higher. No chance of
  falling asleep.
• Many notes two parallel threads, the note-taker
  and the group chat. Group chat periodically comes
  back to lecture content as new notes appear from
  the note-taker.

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Next Step

• Move to Vadem Clios with wireless
• Support both keyboard and pen note-taking.
• Cheaper, lighter, batteries last all day.
• Develop custom software based on feedback
• Support conversation threads.
• Include hyperlinks (or hyper-ink).
• Include timestamping to allow synchronization
  with MM transcript of the lecture.
• In-class lecture rewind was proposed as a
  useful feature.

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Future ideas

• Lecturer feedback
• Polling student answers to questions
• Student writing activity pauses mean confusion
  or important point?
• Analyzing student transcripts offline looking
  for confusion or difficulty.
• Guidelines vs. controls on the transcripts
• Random chat OK? Or only on-topic notes?
• Use a sample of transcripts for assessment?

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Future ideas

• Offline organization of notes
• Collaborative filtering to match background,
  language ability of learner with notes in corpus.
  
• ZPD principles to retrieve notes slightly more
  advanced than the learner.
• Full-text indexing and search.
• Time-indexing and linkage to lecture recording.