Learning Ecosystems

echalk — from www.echalk.de

From DSC:
I’m looking for a technology that can capture 20 feet worth of “chalkboard” for longer mathematical problems and solutions and equations. How can we capture that?

Perhaps I’m not thinking clearly, but tablets don’t seem nearly large enough to fit these types of work on them in their entirety. Document cameras are another potential option, but again, the writing surface is too small. That goes for PolyVision’s Eno Board, Smart’s Interactive Whiteboards, BrightLink Projectors from Epson and other similar products.

That’s why E-Chalk caught my attention.

I’m trying to free up students’ minds — to allow them to be cognitively engaged with — and present with — the content being discussed (vs. having to madly write down the equations before the professor erases the board). I want them to walk away with such writings on a device and/or accessible somewhere on the cloud.

E-chalk is more than a traditional chalkboard because it integrates multimedia elements:

• Pictures can be directly retrieved from the Internet or from the local computer.
• Mathematical functions can be plotted.
• Mathematical expressions can be evaluated on the fly via handwriting recognition.
• Interactive web services (CGI scripts) can be integrated in the lecture.