Project Title: Interactive Classroom

Premise:

The use of internet and other computer systems have been becoming much more
common in an ever small and efficient world.  People don't have the resources
or the time to go to a school to learn about a new topic.  Thus, introducing
the idea of a Network-based interactive classroom.  The idea is that people
will be able to participate in a class using this application.  Similar
projects have already been made.  However, there always seems to be room for
improvement to enhance the classroom experience.

Organization:

The application should simulate an interactive forum where both the "teachers"
and "students" can teach and learn, respectively.  Thus, there will be two
types of boards: one for teachers and one for students.

The teachers should have the resources a teacher would have in a normal
classroom.  Taking attendance, chatting with students in a common chat rooms,
sending messages to individual students, giving practice questions, and
assigning and picking up homework are among the many actions a teacher should
be able to do using this application.

The experience of students in the Interactive Classroom shouldn't be that
different.  The students should be able to send private messages to the
teachers (but not to other classmates), check which classmates are online and
registered, upload and send homeworks, take practice questions the teachers
post and check the statistics of the answers as compared to the rest of the
class, check for newsgroup postings, etc.

Agency:

The database to use in this application shouldn't be that much more different
than any regular program, it seems.  The main problem should be in organizing
the code so that students and teachers can communicate at the appropriate
timing.  Also, the two boards will be very different, and integrating both will
be challenging.

Visualization:

It is probably a bit ambitious to make the application use live images of the
teacher, as some similar existing applications do.

Students will be able to login to enter a classroom mode, displaying the forum
or classroom chat, the slides that the teacher presents, and which other
students are registered.  There will be commands to send messages to the
professors, in addition to links to check assignment pages, uploaded and
submitted documents, and a newsgroup.  Pop-up panels will come up for
practice-questions (same which will display the statistics of the other answers
in class) and for messages sent from the teacher.

Teachers should be able to have the same actions as students, but also with the
ability to make the practice questions ahead of time, make slides and store
them ahead of time, display such slides, receive and send back homeworks, keep
track of attendance and grading, etc.

Users:

This project will probably be used by Teaching Assistants in Brown or by other
smaller programs in Brown.