This prototype is all about bringing more social and collaborative aspects to school’s IT-stack. The schools that have acquired tablets, usually already have interactive whiteboards in class rooms. Those are mainly teacher’s tools and tablets are clearly geared for students. So with Walma we have created a unified drawing board for both devices. Teacher may ask a student to join in the drawing using his/her tablet. The drawing is automatically synchronized between the devices in real-time. The synchronization works via public Internet so the student don’t even have to be in the same class room. He/she can be attending the class using a video link and with Walma he/she can take part in teaching.

You can test out the prototype here:

http://walmademo.opinsys.fi/

Be aware that this is a very early prototype and has some obvious features missing. The idea is not be a complete solution yet, but to awake ideas within teachers and other education professionals. You can checkout our issue list on Github. Please report if you find some unlisted issues.

The prototype requires a quite modern browser. On desktops latest Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome is known to work fine and on tablets Firefox Beta on Android and Safari on iPad.

Technology

As we have very small development team we cannot develop on each individual platform natively. Not only we have two major tablet platforms, Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS, but also the desktop platforms. We deliver our solution on top of Linux, but the number of personal devices among students is increasing so it would be very shortsighted to ignore those. So that means at least five different platforms. That’s quite a task even for a large team.

So we obviously went the web route. HTML5 Canvas and WebSockets allow one to build quite easily a collaborative whiteboard application. Web app also gives huge advantages when it comes to inviting others to join in the drawing. Teacher can just send a link of the drawing to the student and all the student has to do is open that link. It works no matter what the student’s device is. Installation step in here would be a deal breaker for usability.

The application itself is written in CoffeeScript and is running on Node.js. If you are more interested in the code of the application you can check it out on Github. All code is released under GPLv2+. So feel free to host it your self and hack on it. All feature requests, bug reports and especially patches are very welcome.

Challenges with the browsers

In theory all browsers supports the requirements for our app. Those are HTML5 Canvas for drawing and WebSockets for real-time synchronization. Canvas is supported on every browser on every platform and most of those support WebSockets as well.

Lacking support in WebSockets is not a big deal since Socket.IO library in Node.js can cleanly fallback to long-polling and other hacks when required. We had more issues with Canvas even though it should be more mature.

We had the latest and greatest Android tablets as test devices, Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 and Asus Transformer. Both shipping with fast dual core processors and Android 3.x with advertised hardware acceleration support in their WebKit based browsers.

But to our surprise the Canvas performance in Android Browser was just terrible. When one draws a line on the device it gets drawn on remote devices with proper Canvas implementations before it manages to draw it locally! It’s totally unusable in drawing applications. This is really weird since my personal phone, HTC Desire Z, which is much older device and ships with older version of Android has no issues with Canvas performance. We tested this with several other Canvas applications as well, so it’s not just our app. There is something really wrong in the Canvas implementation. One can slightly speed up the drawing by disabling hardware acceleration from the browser, but it’s still way too slow for drawing.

Luckily Google is not the only one shipping browsers for Android. Mozilla is making a great effort with it’s Android port of Firefox. It has a reasonable Canvas performance and it even supports WebSockets. So it’s pretty good for our app.

On the other hand Safari on Apple’s iPad, which also is a WebKit based browser, happens to have an incredibly good Canvas performance. It is actually on the par with native drawing applications. This something I really would expect from Google. Since I see Google as the web company today and they are really committed in making Chrome the best browser on desktops, but in tablets they have the worst. In many ways the Android browser feels like Internet Explorer 6. We haven’t had a chance to try the Android 4.0 browser yet, so it may bring improvements.

Conclusion

Tablet browser issues aside, Walma is quite usable as it is. We are planning to integrate Walma with our desktop solution. Users will be able to take a screenshot and open it in Walma with a single click. This can be used to elaborate other teaching material in a way that students can participate too.

Esa-Matti Suuronen

The tablet is a window to the web and android being a google-thing it’s easily assumed that doing stuff in the browser is easy. Because more and more of the stuff that needs doing is done online one could also assume that the tablet is a good tool: light, great batterylife, always on, always online (when at all possible), easy to use in a variety of situations. Well, well, not quite.

How wonderful it is to be able to break false assumptions, especially ones own.

When i started testing my greatest concern was about writing using the touch pad. But that is not a big problem. Already it’s working pretty good on the touchscreen. The problem is simply that web-sites have not been designed with tablets in mind. Since our customers are schools I picked a few of the services that I know is being used here in Finland: moodle, wilma (a tool for teachers, parents and students alike), wikispaces, prezi and GoogleDocs. Let’s see.

First Moodle. Ok, so Moodle is customizable and no one moodle is exactly like any other. The ones I have seen though, all have an abundance of small icons and small text-input-fields. Unless you constantly zoom in and out it’s hard to navigate. Maybe needless to say, zooming should be an option, not a mandatory thing to do for simple input and navigation. A big screen with a normal mouse and keyboard feels like heaven after a few minutes.

Wilma is a very popular intraweb-type service for schools that include schedules, e-mail, e-portfolios, results from exams etc. It is used daily by teachers and students. I found that it works ok with the tablet, although far from really convenient. The problem is the same as in moodle, but to a lesser degree, simply because there’s less stuff crammed into one page.

I have become a great fan on wikispaces. It’s easy to learn, both for teachers and students, and wikispaces makes a point out off giving educators “plus” -versions for free. I’ve been training teachers in it’s use and it’s only natural to test out how it works. Apart from the one time it completely crashed the browser not much needs to be said. To read others wikis goes smoothly, to edit is far from convenient, but possible. It’s a bit hard to say how much the usability is about habit.

Prezi is a nice cloud-service that lets you do presentations online in a novel way. I like to recommend it because it solves all the compatibility issues between different office -suites in one go. You do it and store in online and access it anywhere. Unless, you´re using an android tablet, that is. It either jams up working very slowly or crashes completely. The most recent I found on this is here.

Finally, GoogleDocs. The logic of presumtion here goes like this: android = google and google = GoogleDocs, thus: Android and GoogleDocs = friends. But that turns out to be false, because GoogleDocs is not designed for tablets in the first place. It’s certainly possible to write with Docs on the tab (in desktop -mode it crashed though) but you completely lack the editor menu. So text goes in, yes, but you only have the keyboards functions. There is a GoogleDocs app available, but it is apparently designed with phones in mind, not as full-fledged tablet app. I soon found out that using Evernote (a note-taking app that works offline, available from android market) and copy-pasting into a GoogleDoc for later editing on a computer works best for me. But that is hardly something I could recommend in general.

So, it seems to me that everything needs it’s own native android application or / and websites need to have tablet -versions. As it is now, I would not recommend changing from a laptop to a tablet if a great part of the users work is done online. Since tablets are getting more and more popular, this will probably change. For an interesting discussion on native vs. web apps have a look at this.

Time to look at what these things CAN do for teaching.

-Kim Wikström

When one is asked to evaluate a new thing, be it what it may, the natural tendency is to compare it with something known. The known options are the laptop and desktop. But these tools on the one hand and tablets on the other are designed for different purposes, right? If I would ask a carpenter to compare the usability of a big saw designed for sawing planks and  a small hand jigsaw he would probably say the obvious: “It depends on what you want to do”. When people compare, some believe that a tab is no-go in school because compared to devices with keyboards, its hard to use it for writing and you write a lot in school. Let’s see. Have a look at the tube below from 4:00 onwards.

It’s an Ipad, but the same points concern our android friends. Honestly, I don’t think anybody knows if we will have to carry external keyboards with us forever, but somehow it seems unlikely. One thing to remember is that people who have used normal keyboards for 15+ years have a different approach than young pupils in school. It is possible that students will adopt the touchscreen and it’s future versions for writing without any great loss of speed or convenience. My personal experience however is the same as our Pad Lady in the video: it’s ok for short stuff, but not nice at all if you need to write long things. So: You do need a external keyboard, if a tablet is your only mobile device and you write a lot AND you don’t want to suffer for X amount of time.

One very important point is illustrated in this video, and that is the support that keeps the tablet upright. During my first days of tabbing I got a serious neck ache from looking downwards. I like the little tripod that she uses, but I suppose there will appear many options as time goes by, like this one for example.

If you google “writing with pad / tablet” most of the stuff that comes up has to do with the Ipad. And a great part of that stuff about writing-apps for Ipad. There are roughly two ways to go from here. One is to search for a good “office” -like application for android that can work offline, and the other is to go with GoogleDocs. To make it short, I haven’t found anything good for the offline -option and the mobile version on GoogleDocs don’t really satisfy either.  I’m going to keep testing and searching, but for the time being writing, say, an essay would be a painful experience. I hope this is temporary and that I can return to this blog after some days and say I have the solution. We’ll see.

So let’s compare a little. According to what we saw on the video, writing on a tablet is not necessarily a problem, since some choose it freely. The point is to have an external keyboard at hand when you need it. For the time being the lack on android is in the applications. I hope that we will see some seriously good web -based writing tools with offline capabilities soon and being the optimist I am, I think we will.

-Kim Wikström

1. The touch interface, i.e intuitive ways for children to process pictures etc.
2. The mobility and lightweightness of the pads
3. The brand

Starting from the end, the third point is not as unimportant as it may seem. If users have a prejudice wired towards the positive, half of the challenge of successful deployment is taken care of. The second point has to do with the limitations of netbooks and laptops, at least to some degree. It’s hard to say exactly why, but it definitely looks as if the pads are more easy to work on, say, standing up. Their batterylife was also said to be good. The first point is the main point however. It’s said that the pads touchscreens invite children and adults alike to do stuff.

We are going to have a closer look at these and other points now. For the coming months, I’ve commited myself to a little pad/tablet research job with the aim to gain some understanding about what makes these things wonderful, useless or, most likely, something more relative to the envisioned contexts of use. I will not be testing an Ipad, but pads running android 3.0.1. Why? Good question, let’s just say it’s much more interesting for us to see what an open source solution can bring to this. Here is what I’ll try to figure out:

• What part of a teachers job can be done with a tablet?
• How do the web -based some programs that students and teachers use behave on a tablet?
• What cases of successful or unsuccesful uses of tablets can be found on the web?
• If I where back in school as a teacher, what would I do with a tablet and what could I imagine my colleagues do with them
• If I were a the headmaster / IT -planner for a school and had the money, would I invest in pads or not.
• Ideas for software development for these things

I will publish my findings and musings in this blog and naturally welcome any comments and hints.

-Kim Wikström

I added few configuration options to this plugin:

• minLength: minimum number of characters
• width: the number of pixels in the div-element of results. Can also be set to ‘auto’.

We also needed support for multiple search urls when we use it on the Puavo. My changes to this plugin are available on Github. Test and use it and will tell me how it works!

HTML

<div id="jquery-live-search-example">
  <form method="post" action="/one-search/">

    <p>
        <label>Enter search terms<br />
          <input id="search" type="text" name="q" />
        </label>
        <input type="submit" value="Go" />
    </p>

  </form>
</div>

JavaScript

jQuery('#search').liveSearch({
  url: ['/one-serach?q=', '/two-search?q='],
  width: 'auto',
  minLength: 2
})

Jouni Korhonen

Mimio and Linux

MimioStudio and its drivers are needed on linux for MimioTeach to work. MimioStudio was the only software package that was not translated to Finnish.

There were quite problems with the MimioStudio installation package. The biggest issue is that the installer assumes too much about the environment which causes installation to fail in many cases. E.g. installation results are different if one starts the installation by clicking an icon on desktop vs. running the same file from command line. There are more details in the end of this article. The test results and problems have been reported to the developers also.

After getting the software installed MimioTeach works nicely. We mainly used it on LTSP fat clients that run all software locally on the client instead of using the server. On the first run Mimio was connected to normal locally installed workstation and the software made an automatic firmware updade after connecting the device with an usb cable. Update was automatic and worked without problems. Also the wireless receiver worked.

Using normal linux desktop with Mimio’s pen was easy and fun. Touching the surface with pen equals to pressing left mouse button. The pen has also two programmable buttons. Touch sensitivity and overall feeling were among the best in the test. There’s practically no latency which creates an illusion of using a real ink pen.

Dualhead support didn’t work as expected as calibration didn’t work if the screens had different resolutions. When both displays had the same resolution, also calibration worked. Also cloned displays worked.

MimioStudio usage

Overall impression of MimioStudio from normal user’s point of view was quite polished and stable. The software activates itself when Mimio hardware is connected. Alternatively product key can be entered when the program starts. In some cases registration didn’t always work correctly and the licensing information wasn’t saved. There’s no support for license management in LTSP fat client environment.

MimioStudio lacks in features compared to Smart Notebook or Promethean ActivInspire (e.g. handwriting and shape recognition is not supported), but works well in other uses. When using normal linux desktop Mimio takes the lead because of its accuracy, low latency and programmable buttons.

Overview

+ Feels good
+ No need for complex hardware installations
+ Wireless operation

- Ubuntu/debian packaging is incomplete and unstable. In some cases the software ends up being unusable after installation.
- MimioStudio doesn’t support Finnish language

Bugs

Here’s a list of issues regarding MimioStudio’s linux compatibility from technical point-of-view.

1. Creates .mimio directory in the home directory of the user who installs the software. The directory is owned by root which prevents the software from starting.
2. Mimio-mimiosys program assumes too much about the environment. This causes problems when installing in LTSP fat client chroot.
3. Package lists non-existent files under /var/tmp, but misses files that the package installs under /var/opt/mimio
4. Package gives global write permissions to file /var/opt/mimio/mimio-mimiosys that is run by /etc/xdg/autostart/mimio-mimiosys.desktop when users login to the system. This makes it possible for anyone on the system to execute files as other user when they log in.

-Antti Sokero (Technical work by Juha Erkkilä and Veli-Matti Lintu)

Smartboard and linux

SMART Technologies has been longer with linux than the other manufacturers and the software quality is noticeably better and it is more polished than others. Many of the earlier problems and missing features have been fixed with the newest update in March. There are now also deb packages available for Debian/Ubuntu that were missing before. The software is available both in Finnish and Swedish.

Software installation package includes device drivers and Notebook software. There were no other steps needed after installing to package to get it working in test systems. Smart software the only one of the tested that didn’t have issues when installing on normal workstation or in LTSP chroot image. Others have a lot to learn in this respect.

Calibration is activated either from menu or through icon in the panel. In dualhead configuration it worked nicely and the correct display is selected by pressing spacebar.

Using Smartboard is straightforward. The whiteboard resembles physically a ink drawing board and it comes with four pens with different colours. The software picks the colour by sensing which one of the pens is picked up. There is also a physical eraser. Beginners should have no trouble getting used to using different pens and to clean the board with the eraser. Smartboard software has also a nice feature when a pen is picked up when Notebook software is not running – the software takes a snapshot of the desktop and allows one to write directly on it. When pen is placed back, normal desktop resumes.

Smartboard’s latency is not the best of all tested boards and the cursor on the screen lags a bit behind the pen. When drawing it doesn’t loose track, so even if it takes half a second or a second to catch up, the drawing follows the pen or finger. Hardware resource usage was not a problem, but using flash objects and video files there was a slowdown.

Only technical problems with the Smartboard software were quite relaxed file permissions. They can cause problems in multiuser environments where users can edit files they shouldn’t. File permissions problems were quite minimal to some of the other packages, though. There are more details in the end of the article.

There were some random problems during testing, but we couldn’t reproduce them. At least once the whiteboard stopped responding – touch wasn’t recognised, calibration didn’t activate and onscreen keyboard couldn’t be opened. After rebooting the machine everything worked normally again, so the real cause of the problem remains a mystery.

The last version of Notebook software has support for handwriting recognition. Feature is still incomplete and many Finnish language words weren’t recognised correctly. There’s no Finnish selectable in the configuration, so we had to use German, which may have caused some of the problems. There’s also an annoying bug that places the last letter of the word on a different line. Promethean’s handwriting recognition did work better.

Overview

+ Linux support and packaging are polished
+ Can be used with fingers without the pens
+ Dualhead support works nicely

- Handwriting recognition has problems
- Latency is sometimes annoyingly large

Bugs

Here are some of problems we noticed in the Smartboard software:

1. Notebook’s handwriting recognition doesn’t work well in Finnish language. Last character is always placed on a separate line.
2. Creates some globally wriable files and directories. This is not a good practice in multiuser environments. User home directories or read-only global files should be used instead. Files: /etc/xdg/SMART Technologies.conf, /etc/xdg/SMART Technologies/SMART Notebook.conf, /opt/SMART Technologies/common/data, /opt/SMART Technologies/common/data/.mp.1.1.dat, /opt/SMART Technologies/common/data/.vp.1.2.dat
3. Installation packages create start files under /usr/share/applications, but the files are not listed in any of the smart-* packages
4. Binaries and directories have spaces in name

-Antti Sokero (Technical work by Juha Erkkilä ja Veli-Matti Lintu)

Promethean’s pen resembles a normal ballpoint pen that has a single button attached. When the pen is moved within a couple of millimeters from the whiteboard, it is possible to move mouse cursor without pressing the left button. Other tested models didn’t have this feature. Left mouse button is pressed when the pen touches the board. Tested model had two identical pens with it. In theory there is support for multitouch, but the tested whiteboard would need an update for it to work. So whether it works with linux couldn’t be tested this time.

Promethean and Linux

We had tested Promethean some time ago and linux support has improved noticeably. Software packages for Ubuntu are distributed through an apt repository which makes installation and updates easy. Other vendors don’t have their software available this way. For normal users this makes installation painfree. Software was translated in both Finnish and Swedish.

After installation Promethean ActivInspire works nicely and calibration can be started by pressing Promethean’s logo on the whiteboard with the pen. This makes it easy to use the whiteboard without having to use mouse or keyboard. Also dualhead support works and calibration is easy to use in dualhead setup.

Latency is sometimes noticeable, but overall speed is good. The most annoying feature is the random cuts in touch recognition. Solid lines look often dashed lines if one doesn’t really concentrate on pressing the pen properly. This might not be a big issue when one gets used to the whiteboard and pen. If one presses the pen wrongly it creates annoying sounds. We couldn’t figure out if the sensitivity can be adjusted.

Even if installation is painfree in single computer installation, centrally managed environments cause various problems. Promethean requires a custom kernel module to work. When installed in LTSP fat client chroot, the running kernel is different from the kernel used in the fat clients. This makes the kernel modules installation to fail.

Other technical problems are file permissions and security problems caused by too relaxed permissions. There are more details in the end of the article. We have reported the finding to the developers, but we haven’t yet heard back from them.

Overview

+ Pen can be used to move mouse cursor without simulating left mouse button at the same time
+ Packaging and apt repository
+ Easy to do tasks needing good precision
+ Dualhead support works nicely

- Requires a closed source kernel module to work
- Pen touch recognition cuts off randomly

Bugs

Here are technical problems found in the Promethean software:

1. Activdriver package gives normal users a chance to become root while the package is being installed
2. /etc/xdg/Promethean is globally writeable and license code and user settings are placed there. Some of the information should be put under user’s home directory instead and /etc should be write protected.
3. meta packages conflict each other, e.g. activ-meta-fi and activ-meta-sv cannot be installed at the same time, but still the language support can be used for multiple languages
4. Could the software be made to work without a kernel module? Installing the kernel module fails now it the running kernel is different from the target kernel. If kernel module is absolutely necessary, it should install always correctly and not assume that the running kernel is the kernel that it should use.

-Antti Sokero (Technical work by Juha Erkkilä and Veli-Matti Lintu)

We had five interactive whiteboard models in test lab:

• Promethean Activboard ABV378S300
• MimioTeach + usb hub
• Cleverboard 3 – Separate article will be done a bit later
• Cleverboard Dual – Separate article will be done a bit later
• Smart Board SB680 (70″)

Conference room used as test lab

The local vendors provided us the test hardware and not all models are the newest ones available. Most manufacturers use the same technology in different models, so the test results from one model often tell a lot about the whole product line. We cannot say anything for certain about not tested models, though.

In linux usability the best were Smartboard and Promethean. Linux support was quite polished and also the physical hardware were convincing. Both have reasonably well packaged software that have more advanced features than the rest. Dymo’s MimioTeach was also interesting and it shines in use cases where mobility is a requirement. Overall impression of Mimio suffers from unpolished software packaging and lack of Finnish translation. Cleverboards had quite a few problems mostly caused by unfinished linux software.

Tested features have been compiled in the following table and every whiteboard model has its own article.

MimioTeach receiver

Only basic features were tested. It should be noted that different whiteboard models from same manufacturer may support different features even with same software packages. It is not possible to name a single best model from the tested models as different use cases require different features. Smartboard has the best linux support at the moment and the software worked as it should. For centrally managed environments all software packages need development to enable central license management. Currently license files need to be found manually from the filesystem after debugging the software, but this is far for user friendly. LTSP systems are spreading in schools all over the world making this an issue in many places.

Firmware updates were done only when absolutely necessary – meaning that only Mimio was updated as it wouldn’t work otherwise. Smartboard suggested an update, but it wasn’t done. There were no big differences in resource usage between the different software packages. Adding video and flash elements caused load to go up suddenly on all of them. In normal usage there were no big problems with memory usage or performance.

Biggest noticeable difference between the different whiteboards were touch sensitivity and latency. Latency here means the delay that can be seen when drawing on the board – does the mouse follow the pen/finger immediately or does it take some time to react. Mimio had the smallest latency that had nearly immediate response even when drawing with fast movements. Sensitivity means how well the whiteboard senses touch. For example with Promethean all testers had trouble drawing solid lines because the line would have breaks with it as the whiteboard didn’t sense the touch all the time.

Promethean was the only one to allow moving the mouse without pressing the left mouse key at the same time. This can be done by keeping the pen within a couple millimeters from the whiteboard. Touching the whiteboard means pressing the mouse key. All the other models always simulate pressing mouse button when touch is recognized.

The table below summarises technical features. Various problems with Cleverboard Lynx 4.0 software may have caused some things to be reported incorrectly.

Basic features of IWB software packages

There are also lots of other features in the software packages, but we have been focusing only in the basic features. Pedagogical material, support services and community activity has not been evaluated. Most software share the same features and usage logic is the similar in all of them. All have software that allows users to create graphical presentation similar to PowerPoint and OpenOffice.org Impress. Presentations can be shown page by page in fullscreen mode. Most software are hybrids between presentation software and drawing programs.

Examples of basic features are also curtain and spotlight features that allow the presenter to show only certain parts of the material on screen.

All the software is proprietary and closed sourced, so only the manufacturer can support them. Manufacturers claim to support most linux distributions, but we could not test anything else besides Ubuntu in this project. Most drivers are also so new that we cannot say much about longterm support that is available for them.

-Antti Sokero

• Interactive whiteboards and linux
• Interactive whiteboard software comparison
• Installing interactive whiteboard software on Ubuntu

Last week our conference room was turned in to a test laboratory as we took a deep look at different interactive whiteboards and their linux support.

The general feeling I got was fairly positive. It seems that previously familiar products have seen a lot of development and also new rivals have appeared.  Almost all of the devices actually worked fairly easily with linux. Only exceptions have been the CleverBoards (CleverBoard3 and Dual) as neither of them showed any life after plugged in. We will see later if this could be fixed after software updates.

From the reviewed software packages, Smart Notebook seems to be the most mature. Also Promethean has put effort on their linux support. MimioStudio still has problems with their installation package as it won’t even start without tweaking. One common problem for all of these software packages has to do with the file and folder rights. On a single user Linux workstation they might not be that big issue, but in a large scale environment they easily open unwanted security holes and a possibility to do harm at least to the software itself. Hopefully they will be fixed in the future.

Next up we will gather up our notes and make a little review for each of these products and their linux compatibility. We already sent some feedback to the manufacturers based on our findings so let’s see how they react. All in all the situation looks good and probably in the near future we’ll have plug’n'play compatibility for each of these products on our own ltsp system.

- Antti Sokero