Method and system for online teaching using web pages

• US 6,898,411 B2
• Filed: 01/12/2001
• Issued: 05/24/2005
• Est. Priority Date: 02/10/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Educational Testing Service
• Original Assignee: Educational Testing Service
• Inventors: Tolly, Robert, Dunk, Michael, Ziv-el, Shimon G.
• Primary Examiner(s): Banks, Derris H.
• Assistant Examiner(s): ADAMS, CHANDA L
• Application Number:
  US09/760,267
• Publication Number:
  US 20010034016A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,593 Days
• Field of Search: 434/350, 434/322, 434/323, 434/362, 345/715, 345/760, 345/730, 345/732, 345/731
• US Class Current: 434/350
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 7/02 of the type wherein the student is expected to construct an answer to the question which is presented or wherein the machine gives an answer to the question presented by a student

Abstract

A teaching and learning method and system (143, 145, 147, 148, 152) communicates exercises, including URL'"'"'s of Web pages and questions related thereto. Each exercise is distributed by the teacher'"'"'s computer (143), synchronously, or downloaded by a student computer (147), asynchronously. An indicator (129) used on the Web page of one computer can be viewed on the same Web page displayed on the other computers. Responses are processed by the response server (145) and by comparison and evaluation logic, and displayed contemporaneously on the teacher'"'"'s computer, together with scoring information (105, 106) and with URL'"'"'s (107) associated with links used on each student computer. Scores are awarded automatically, or arbitrarily by clicking on the screen (105) of the teacher'"'"'s computer. A feedback signal (80) may appear on the student computer with each keystroke to indicate its correctness. Responses selected on the teacher'"'"'s computer may viewed on the student computers or on a Class Display (171).

Claims

1. A networked teaching and learning system having a plurality of student computers, each having an input device and a screen, and having at least one teacher'"'"'s computer including an input device and a screen, the networked system further comprising:

at least one data storage server for storage of lessons, said lessons including exercises having Uniform Resource Locators (URL'"'"'s), questions and multi-character answers,

a response server in communication with the student computers for processing student responses; and

Web browsers on the teacher'"'"'s computer and the student computers for communicating through a Web server in response to URL'"'"'s received from the teacher and student computers;

wherein a teacher'"'"'s computer and the students'"'"' computers include program instructions responsive to inputs to cause an exercise, including a Web page relating to a URL, to be displayed on the screen of at least one of the student computers;

wherein the student computer includes program instructions for displaying the Web page, including selectable links, by referring to the URL received with the exercise, and for immediately transmitting the URL from each link selected and each character resulting from an input on the student computer, to the response server; and

further comprising comparison and evaluation logic for comparison and evaluation of the character with a homologous character of at least one answer to the question; and

wherein the teacher'"'"'s computer includes program instructions for the teacher'"'"'s screen to be contemporaneously responsive to the sequence of Web links selected on the screen of the student'"'"'s computer and to the character from a student keystroke and to a result of the comparison and evaluation.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the teacher and the students communicate through an Internet connection.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the teacher and the students communicate through an Intranet.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the instructions for causing display of an exercise on the student'"'"'s computer are executed by the teacher'"'"'s computer in response to inputs from the teacher, and wherein the exercise is displayed on the plurality student computers.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein the teacher'"'"'s computer includes program instructions for selecting a student response on a screen for display on the student computers.

6. The system of claim 4, wherein the teacher'"'"'s computer is immediately responsive to an aggregate of correct and incorrect student responses.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein the teacher'"'"'s computer includes program instructions responsive to teacher inputs to cause a Web page to be previewed on the screen of the teacher'"'"'s computer by retrieval from the data storage server.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the instructions for causing display of the exercise on the student, computer are executed by the student'"'"'s computer in response to inputs from the student.

9. The system of claim 1, wherein the teacher'"'"'s computer includes program instructions for selecting a student response on the teacher'"'"'s screen for display on a class display working in combination with additional memory.

10. The system of claim 1, wherein the teacher'"'"'s computer includes program instructions for selecting a student response on the screen of the teacher'"'"'s computer and subjectively modifying a score resulting from operation of the comparison and evaluation logic on response data received from at least one of the plurality of student computers.

11. The system of claim 1, wherein the plurality of student computers are immediately responsive to a result of the comparison and evaluation logic through a feedback signal receivable at each of the plurality of student computers.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the student computers display a window displaying at least one Web page and a question concerning the Web page.

13. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one of to plurality of student computers has a screen which displays a separate response text box and an explanation text box;

and wherein the comparison and evaluation logic is responsive to inputs to the two respective text boxes to distinguish between inputs to the respective text boxes.

14. The system of claim 1, wherein the teacher'"'"'s computer includes program instructions responsive to teacher inputs to cause a Wait mode message to be sent to at least one student computer to block access to the response server.

15. The system of claim 1, wherein the teacher'"'"'s computer and the plurality of student computers use respective Web browsers and communicate with at least one Web server;

and wherein the program instructions on the student computers and the teacher'"'"'s computer are provided by respective Web browsers.

16. The system of claim 1, wherein the teacher'"'"'s computer includes program instructions for creation of an indicator on the Web page on the teacher'"'"'s screen which copies to the same positions on the corresponding Web pages of the screens of the student computers.

17. The system of claim 16, wherein the teacher and the students communicate through with the Internet.

18. The system of claim 16, wherein the teacher and the students communicate through an Intranet.

19. A method of online teaching of a plurality of students with an exercise relating to a Web site, including the steps of:

communicating a URL for the Web site to each of the plurality of students;

displaying the Web page including selectable links from the Web site to each of a plurality of students;

communicating the student links selected to a data storage device and multi-character responses as they are formed, character-by-character, to the data storage device; and

displaying on a computing device operable to be used by a teacher information comprising;

the sequence of URLs for each web site visited by the plurality of students contemporaneous with the students'"'"' visits to each web site; and

the responses from the plurality of students from the data storage device character-by-character as each character is received in the data storage device.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the teacher initiates the communication of the URL to the plurality of students, and the Web page of the Web site is automatically displayed to the teacher and the students.

21. The method of claim 19, wherein the exercise includes a question and a multi-character correct answer and the question is communicated with the URL to each of the plurality of students;

and

wherein the student responses are compared and evaluated against a correct answer, and where the appearance of each response to the teacher is associated with the correctness of the response.

22. The method of claim 21, wherein the correctness of a response can be overridden by the teacher pointing to the response and arbitrarily assigning a score to the response using a dialog box.

23. The method of claim 21, wherein the exercise includes a question and a multi-character correct answer and the question is communicated with the URL to each of the plurality of students, and where the student responses are compared and evaluated against the correct answer, and where the student receives a feedback signal immediately on insertion of a character of a correct response.

24. A networked teaching and learning system having a plurality of student computers, each having an input device and a screen, and having at least one teacher'"'"'s computer including an input device and a screen, the networked system further comprising:

at least one data storage server for storage of lessons, said lessons including exercises having questions and multi-character answers;

a response server in communication with the student computers for processing student responses;

Web browsers on the teacher'"'"'s computer and the student computers for communicating through a Web server in response to URL'"'"'s received from the teacher and student computers;

wherein the Web browsers on the teacher'"'"'s computer and the student computers includes program instructions responsive to inputs to cause an exercise to be displayed on the screen of at least one of the student computers;

wherein Web browser on the student computer includes program instructions for immediately transmitting each character resulting from an input on the student computer, to the response server;

further comprising comparison and evaluation logic for comparison and evaluation of the character with a homologous character of at least one answer to the question;

wherein the Web browser on the teacher'"'"'s computer includes program instructions for the teacher'"'"'s screen to be contemporaneously responsive to the sequence of Web links selected on the screen of the student'"'"'s computer and to the character from a student keystroke and to the result of the comparison and evaluation; and

wherein the student computers display a window displaying at least one Web page associated with an external Web site and a question concerning the Web page.

25. The system of claim 24, wherein the teacher and the students communicate through the Internet.

26. The system of claim 24, wherein the teacher and the students communicate through an Intranet.

27. The system of claim 24, wherein the instructions for causing display of an exercise on the student'"'"'s computer are executed by the teacher'"'"'s computer in response to inputs from the teacher, and wherein the exercise is displayed on the plurality of student computers.

28. The system of claim 27, wherein the teacher'"'"'s computer is immediately responsive to the aggregate of correct and incorrect student responses.

29. The system of claim 24, wherein the teacher'"'"'s computer includes program instructions for selecting a student response on a screen of the teacher'"'"'s computer for display on at least one of the student computers.

30. The system of claim 24, wherein the instructions for causing display of the exercise on the student'"'"'s computer are executed by the student'"'"'s computer in response to inputs from the student.

31. The system of claim 24, wherein the teacher'"'"'s computer includes program instructions for selecting a student response on the screen of the teacher'"'"'s computer and subjectively modifying a score resulting from operation of the comparison and evaluation logic on response data received from at least one of the plurality of student computers.

32. The system of claim 24, wherein the plurality of student computers are immediately responsive to a result of the comparison and evaluation logic through a feedback signal receivable at each of the plurality of student computers.

33. The system of claim 24, wherein the teacher'"'"'s computer includes program instructions responsive to teacher inputs to cause a Wait mode message to be sent to at least one student computer to block access to the responsive server.