Work in progress-supporting automatic capture in problem based learning environments

Previous work at Georgia Tech has demonstrated the usefulness of classroom capture in traditional lecture settings [Abowd, G.D., (1999)]. Students use captured experiences in a variety of ways: study, reference, and exploration are a few. However, to provide ubiquitous and distributed support for capturing educational experiences, we need to extend capture to nonlecture learning environments. Study groups, problem based learning (PBL) groups, tutoring sessions, individual study, and seminars are all examples of learning environments that are not lecture driven. In this paper, we describe the ongoing design and development of a system that automatically captures the meetings of a PBL group in biomedical engineering. We have based the system design on an initial study of student behavior in existing PBL groups and the ad hoc capture strategies that they employ. We discuss our observations and the resulting design criteria we have developed. We conclude with a description of the ongoing research and the next stage of experiments.