Method for teaching

• US 8,021,164 B2
• Filed: 12/21/2006
• Issued: 09/20/2011
• Est. Priority Date: 12/23/2005
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Allen Epstein
• Original Assignee: Allen Epstein
• Inventors: Epstein, Allen
• Primary Examiner(s): Thai; Xuan M
• Assistant Examiner(s): MUSSELMAN, TIMOTHY A
• Application Number:
  US11/644,157
• Publication Number:
  US 20070166691A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,734 Days
• Field of Search: 434156-185, 434322-365, 434/118, 434/219, 434/307, 434/309, 725/45, 725/46, 725/86, 725109-110, 725/125, 725/131, 725/150, 705/14.4, 715/719, 707/3, 707/E17.108
• US Class Current: 434/322
• CPC Class Codes: G09B 7/00 Electrically-operated teaching apparatus or devices working with questions and answers mechanically operated G09B3/00; computing arrangements G06F

Abstract

Aspects of the present invention include one or more of capturing educational presentations by presenters using instructional aids, making productions of these presentations available over an Internet connection to consumers of educational services, aiding selection of a particular topic and a particular presenter, and financially compensating presenters in accordance with the popularity of their educational presentations.

Claims

1. A method of teaching comprising the processor implemented steps of:

providing academic educational presentations created by educators for the benefit of school students;

for qualified users, providing access via the Internet to the educational presentations stored in digital media, each said presentation teaching the same topic and being made by a different presenter;

collecting financial compensation from a plurality of qualified users;

aiding qualified users in the selection of a particular educational presentation from the plurality of educational presentations;

for at least one presenter, determining an amount of financial compensation to be paid to such presenter;

obtaining a first indicia of popularity for each educational presentation by tracking the number of times each educational presentation has been replayed;

obtaining a second indicia of popularity for each presenter by tracking the number of times each presenter has been replayed;

the processor inferring one or more combined figures of merit, each combined figure of merit being a function of both the first and second indicia of popularity; and

,

making the combined figure of merit available to qualified users for use in selecting a particular presentation.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the step for determining the financial compensation further comprises the step of calculating such financial compensation as a function of at least one figure of merit.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the step for aiding users in the selection of a particular educational presentation further comprises the steps of:

automatically identifying qualified users who receive regular classroom instruction from presenters carrying out their duties as public and private school teachers; and

,

automatically offering any such user the educational presentation of that teacher when such user selects a topic for which an educational presentation by such teacher is stored in the digital media.

4. A method of teaching comprising the processor implemented steps of:

for qualified users, providing access restricted Internet access to a plurality of academic educational presentations created by educators for the benefit of school students;

the presentations stored in digital media, each said presentation teaching the same topic and being made by a different presenter;

collecting financial compensation from a plurality of qualified users;

obtaining a first indicia of popularity for each educational presentation by tracking the number of times each educational presentation has been replayed;

the processor inferring one or more presentation figures of merit from the first indicia of popularity;

obtaining a second indicia of popularity for each presenter by tracking the number of times each presenter has been replayed;

the processor inferring one or more presenter figures of merit from the second indicia of popularity;

the processor inferring one or more combined figures of merit, each combined figure of merit being a function of both the first and second indicia of popularity;

making at least one of the figures of merit available to qualified users for use in selecting a particular educational presentation;

the processor calculating an amount of financial compensation to be paid to at least one presenter as a function of at least one figure of merit;

automatically identifying qualified users who receive regular classroom instruction from presenters carrying out their duties as public and private school teachers; and

,

automatically offering any such user the educational presentation of that teacher when such user selects a topic for which an educational presentation by such teacher is stored in the digital media.

5. A student-centric method of making suitable pre-recorded access restricted educational presentations available to students comprising the processor implemented steps of:

contracting for a plurality of academic educational presentations created by educators for the benefit of school students;

the presentations on a plurality of topics by a plurality of presenters, each of the topics being presented by a plurality of presenters;

capturing the presentations using microphones, video cameras, one or more image capture devices including an electronic whiteboard and production controls;

processing the captured presentations through audio, video and output processors;

storing the captured presentations in digital media;

uploading the captured presentations to an internet accessible digital media storage device;

serving up the presentations via an educational presentation service including an application server in response to qualified user requests to play the presentations;

serving up presentations to qualified users;

maintaining a history of the number of replays of each presentation;

the processor calculating quantitative presentation specific first popularity metrics based on the number of replays of each presentation;

the processor calculating quantitative presenter specific second popularity metrics based on the number of replays of each presenter;

the processor calculating quantitative hybrid third popularity metrics based on presentation specific popularity and presenter specific popularity; and

,

making presentation specific, presenter specific and hybrid metrics available to qualified users for the purpose of aiding such users in their selection of an educational presentation.

6. The method of claim 5 further comprising the step of designing and using the hybrid metric to aid qualified users in selecting a particular presentation when one of the presentation specific and presenter specific metrics indicates multiple presentations having the same popularity.

7. The method of claim 5 further comprising the step of providing a means for motivating presenters employers to enter an educational presentation contract by making works under such contract freely available to the presenter'"'"'s regular public and private school students.

8. The method of claim 7 further comprising the step of creating a competitive marketplace for presenters by calculating presenter compensation as a function of presentation specific and presenter specific metrics.

9. The method of claim 8 wherein the step of quantitatively calculating a hybrid popularity metric includes:

constructing a first set identifying presentations having the highest popularity;

constructing a second set identifying presenters having the highest popularity; and

,

determining the intersection of the first and second sets.

10. The method of claim 9 further comprising;

automatically identifying qualified users who receive regular classroom instruction from presenters carrying out their duties as public and private school teachers; and

,

automatically offering any such user the educational presentation of that teacher when such user selects a topic for which an educational presentation by such teacher is stored in the Internet accessible digital media.