Applied combinatorics
CHI '92 Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Readings in GroupWare and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work: Assisting Human-Human Collaboration
Readings in GroupWare and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work: Assisting Human-Human Collaboration
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Teachers traditionally write on blackboards and similar devices while delivering their lectures. Often the majority of each student's energy is then devoted to copying what the instructor has written into his/her notebook. Only occasionally does a student find time to listen to the lecture, think about the associated ideas, and appropriately annotate the copied notes. The difficulties stemming from the need to copy a large amount of information arise in classes taught in many academic disciplines. However, the problem is perhaps most pronounced in science and mathematics classes where a large amount of information, usually expressed using potentially confusing symbols and notation, is frequently presented very rapidly. A mathematics teacher who is very familiar with the notation of the discipline may very quickly write a formula like: [EQUATION] on the blackboard, but students may require several minutes to copy it. Unfortunately, while the students are busy copying the formula they are often distracted from thinking about the instructor's discussion of its significance. A recent article in the Chronicle of Higher Education summarizes the problem with the following comment made by a student at Cornell University: "In some classes, you're so busy trying to write down what the professors say that you miss half of the information" [Collison 1992]. Statements like this are quite common and served as a primary motivation for our system design.