Design, Implementation, and Evaluation of a Digital Lectern System

Deployment of asynchronous learning systems is still very limited and expensive due to the common use of digital video for recording and distribution of classroom lectures. Lectern II is a digital desk system that can transparently capture, through a touch-sensitive screen, all important lecture components during normal classroom lecturing activity without expensive video acquisition equipments. Lectures recorded through Lectern can be edited, automatically uploaded to a web server and viewed by students using a standard streaming media player. Since the average size of a one hour-long lecture is less than 10 MB, Lectern II lectures can be conveniently played even using a modest modem connection. Considering the total cost of a complete Lectern II system at less than $4,000, Lectern II represents the first Web-based course lecture recording system that has the potential to be widely used in the classrooms of universities and K-12 schools.