System for providing a synchronized display of information slides on a plurality of computer workstations over a computer network

• US 6,654,785 B1
• Filed: 07/18/2000
• Issued: 11/25/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 03/02/1998
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Original Assignee: Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. (HP Inc.)
• Inventors: Craig, Russell O.
• Primary Examiner(s): Alam, Hosain
• Assistant Examiner(s): Qureshi, Shabana
• Application Number:
  US09/618,889
• Time in Patent Office: 1,225 Days
• Field of Search: 709/203, 709/204, 709/217, 709/223, 709/227, 709/248, 707/1, 707/10, 707/9
• US Class Current: 709/203
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/954 Navigation, e.g. using categorised browsing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2216/15 Synchronised browsing
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 707/99931 Database or file accessing

Abstract

A system is disclosed for providing synchronized presentation of slides over a computer network. In accordance with one aspect of the invention, the system includes a plurality of computer workstations disposed in electrical communication across the computer network, each workstation running a Web browser application (e.g. Netscape'"'"'s Navigator, Microsoft'"'"'s Explorer, etc.). An instructor applet is executed under a browser application at a first of the plurality of computer workstations, and at least one student applet is executed under a browser application at a second of the plurality of computer workstations. Finally, a network server is provided and, in response to an initial request from the instructor applet, starts an auxiliary server, which runs a synchronization application that is responsive to the instructor applet for managing a plurality of URLs that define the totality of the presentation. The synchronization application includes a code segment to direct each of the student applets to retrieve and display the presentation slides located at the URLs designated by the instructor and displayed via the Web browser. The display is synchronized in that the same presentation URL is displayed at the instructor workstation and each of the plurality of student workstations.

Claims

1. A system for providing a synchronized presentation of information slides over a computer network comprising:

a plurality of computer workstations disposed in electrical communication across the computer network, each workstation running a browser application;

an instructor applet executing under a browser at a first of the plurality of computer workstations;

at least one student applet executing under a browser at a second of the plurality of computer workstations;

a network server responsive to an initial request from the instructor applet to start a synchronization process, the synchronization process configured to synchronize a state of presentation of a plurality of information slides among the instructor and student applets, the synchronization process operative to receive state information from the instructor applet, and the synchronization process being further operative to communicate this state information to each of the plurality of student applets.

2. The system as defined in claim 1, further including means for communicating voice information from the workstation executing the instructor applet to each of the workstations executing the student applets.

3. The system as defined in claim 2, wherein the voice information is communicated across the network and output at the workstations executing the student applets, in substantially real-time.

4. The system as defined in claim 1, wherein the at least one student applet is configured to respond to information transmitted from the synchronization process modify its state accordingly, the student applet being further configured to instruct its parent browser to retrieve and display new information as designated by the state information.

5. The system as defined in claim 4, wherein the at least one student applet further includes a control mechanism that is configured to permit a person at the workstation executing the student applet to selectively control the presentation of the plurality of slides at that workstation in a manner that is independent of the slide presently selected by the instructor applet.

6. The system as defined in claim 5, where the at least one student applet further includes a resynchronization mechanism that is configured to permit a person at the workstation executing the student applet to resume the passive display of presentation slides as selected by the instructor applet and synchronized by the synchronization process.

7. The system as defined in claim 1, wherein the instructor applet is configured to respond to interactive input from a user modifying the state of the presentation, the instructor applet further configured to send updated state information to the synchronization server, the instructor applet further configured to instruct its parent browser to retrieve and display new information as designated by the state information.

8. The apparatus as defined in claim 1, wherein at least one of the instructor applet, the at least one student applet, and the synchronization process is implemented in the Java language environment.

9. The apparatus as defined in claim 1, wherein the browsers are publicly or commercially available World Wide Web clients that preferably implement a Java virtual machine.

10. The apparatus as defined in claim 1, wherein the computer network includes one or more from group consisting of:

a local area network, a wide area network, a global computing network, and the Internet.

11. The apparatus as defined in claim 1, wherein the designated network server additionally functions as a World Wide Web server, capable of responding to HTTP interactions with browsers.

12. The apparatus as defined in claim 1, wherein the predefined list of URLs describes the totality of a single presentation of interest, the list further implicitly defining the ordinality of the presentation.

13. The apparatus as defined in claim 12, wherein the predefined list of URLs is itself expressed as a syntactically valid HTML document, to permit distribution via a network server functioning as a World Wide Web server capable of responding to HTTP instructions.

14. The apparatus as defined in claim 13, wherein the individual information slides are expressed as any valid URL, said URLs existing on any accessible web server and requiring no modification for inclusion in a synchronized presentation.

15. The apparatus as defined in claim 1, wherein the instructor applet and the at least one student applet may be used independently of a real time connection to the synchronization application, providing manual, standalone access to the predefined list of slides.