Remotely operable teaching system and method therefor

What is claimed is:

1. A method for providing educational material to students at remote locations and generating student activity reports thereof, the method comprising the steps of:

storing educational material in a computer system at a central location for playback to calling students at various other locations;

receiving telephone calls by the computer system from calling telephones, the telephones being operated by respective calling students;

receiving from the telephones identification codes, wherein an identification code identifies a respective calling student;

creating telephone call records which store the received identification codes of the respective calling students;

providing the calling students interactive access, through the corresponding telephones, to the stored educational material;

permitting the calling students to select educational material from the educational material stored in the computer system for playback through the corresponding telephones;

monitoring the activity of the respective calling students during their access to the stored educational material, and creating student activity records based on the monitoring, wherein the student activity records are correlated to the telephone call records of the respective calling students, the monitoring including periodically testing the calling students' attention during playback of the educational material; and

generating student activity reports based on the telephone call records and the student activity records of the respective calling students.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing a student identification code database containing valid student identification codes.

3. The method of claim 2, further comprising verifying the identification codes being received from the calling telephones against the valid student identification codes stored in the student identification code data base.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of storing educational material in the computer system comprises preparing an audio cassette of material to be stored, and converting the audio cassette into a computer digitized voice file for storing in the computer system.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the calling telephones are selected from a group consisting of touch tone telephones and rotary dial telephones.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of transmitting audible instructions from the computer system to the calling students through the corresponding telephones.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of periodically testing the calling students includes transmitting audible instructions to the calling students to prompt the calling students to respond by a specified response to the computer system.

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the audible instructions direct the calling students to enter a specified number into their telephones within a specified period of time.

9. The method of claim 8, wherein the audible instructions are randomly generated.

10. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving from each of the calling students a voice pattern, the respective voice patterns being stored with the corresponding identification codes for further verifying the identity of the respective calling students.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating the reports daily.

12. The method of claim 1, further comprising generating the reports on demand.

13. The method of claim 1, further comprising selectively allowing and denying access to the educational material stored in the computer system to calling students based on the received identification codes.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein the step of providing the respective calling students interactive access to the stored educational material comprises providing fast forward, rewind, pause and exit functions so that the calling students can independently control playback of the stored educational material, and the step of monitoring the activity of the calling students comprises monitoring use by the respective calling students of the functions.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the step of providing the calling students interactive access to the stored material further comprises receiving from the telephones predetermined signals for each of the fast forward, rewind, pause and exit functions.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the fast forward, rewind and pause functions each operate for a predetermined period of time after the corresponding predetermined signals are received from the telephones.

17. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing recorded quizzes to the calling students.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising evaluating substantially simultaneously responses received from the calling students to the quizzes.

19. A system for providing educational material to students at remote locations and generating student activity reports thereof, the system comprising:

a computer system at a central location and means for coupling the computer system to a telephone network;

means for recording and storing educational material in the computer system;

means for receiving telephone calls by the computer system from calling telephones located at various other locations;

means for receiving from the calling telephones identification codes, wherein an identification code identifies a respective calling student;

means for creating telephone call records in the computer system which store the received identification codes of the calling students;

means for providing the calling students interactive access to the stored educational material in the computer system;

means for permitting the calling students to select educational material from the educational material stored in the computer system for playback through the corresponding telephones;

means for monitoring the activity of the respective calling students during their access to the stored educational material and means for creating student activity records in the computer system based on the monitoring, wherein the student activity records are correlated by the computer system to the telephone call records of the respective calling students, said means for monitoring including means for periodically testing the calling students' attention during playback of the educational material; and

means for generating student activity reports based on the telephone call records and the student activity records of the respective calling students.

20. The system of claim 19, further comprising a student identification code data base containing valid student identification codes.

21. The system of claim 20, further comprising means for verifying the identification codes received from the calling students against the valid student identification codes stored in the student identification code data base.

22. The system of claim 19, further comprising means for transmitting audible instructions from the computer system to the calling students.

23. The system of claim 19, further comprising means for receiving from each of the calling students a voice pattern, the respective voice patterns being stored with the corresponding identification codes for further verifying the identity of the respective calling students.

24. The system of claim 19, further comprising means for playing back the educational material selected by the calling students.

25. The system of claim 24, wherein the means for providing interactive access includes providing fast forward, rewind, pause and exit functions so that the respective calling students can independently control playback of the stored educational material.

26. The system of claim 19, further comprising means for providing recorded quizzes to the calling students and means for evaluating substantially simultaneously responses received from the calling students to the quizzes.

Description Submit all comments and votes

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

The present invention relates to a system for providing educational material to students to promote self-study, review of lessons by students, and to facilitate and enhance monitoring of students' extra curricular work by educators. In particular, the system is designed to transmit educational material from a central location through the telephone network to students at other locations, and to generate reports on the use of the educational material by the students. The system provides a student-system interactive program which monitors and tests the students' utilization of the educational material, and stores and generates reports thereof.

The concept of providing educational material to remote users, such as students at home, is an idea of considerable importance. In the case of school students, often a parent cannot be involved in the homework study program of the student. However, students are expected to review daily the material that they have learned in class. It is therefore highly advantageous to be able to provide each individual student with the opportunity to access their teachers' pre-recorded lectures via a telephone, linked to a school computer which contains a central data base on which all pre-recorded lectures or other educational materials are stored.

Systems for providing educational material to users at remote locations are known in the art. However, there is a need for a system that monitors the students' activities while the students are using the educational material and which is able to generate reports that provide information about the use of the recorded educational material by the students.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

Accordingly, it is a primary object of the present invention to provide a remotely operable teaching system and a method for providing recorded educational material to students and for monitoring the use of the educational material by the students. The remotely operable teaching system of the invention provides interactive access to students calling over a telephone network to educational material stored in a centrally located computer system. As used herein, the term interactive access is intended to be broadly defined. For example, the interactive access functions may include any one or combinations of the following functions:

1. Selection of material from the stored educational material for playback;

2. Control of the playback of the educational material, such as fast forward, rewind, pause and exit functions;

3. Obtaining information about the educational material that is being played back, such as title of the material, teacher's name, length of the material, time spent in reviewing the material, and so on; and

4. Obtaining a progress or status report regarding the particular study session.

It is a further object of the present invention to provide a system which is capable of generating daily, continuous or demand driven reports which provide information about the use of the recorded educational material by the students. These reports may also include the results of quizzes that are taken by the students during a study session.

A further object of the present invention is to provide a system which is capable of testing students' comprehension of the material provided to them by the remotely operable teaching system. This object of the invention includes testing the students by providing quizzes or exercises over the telephone, and by monitoring each student's attentiveness during the recorded lectures by requiring each student to respond at intervals to voice prompts. The students' performance on taking the quizzes may be included in the reports generated by the system, or each student may be provided concurrently with the results of the quiz or exercise taken during a study session.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a system that enables students at remote locations to communicate with a central computer at a central location such as a school by entering coded messages via touch tone or rotary telephones.

It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a system that enables the users such as students individual control over pre-recorded educational programs stored in a central database such as a computer at a school.

It is still a further object of the present invention to provide an automatic system which is capable of producing reports listing the names of each student who has accessed the system, at what time, for how long, what material the student reviewed, and how many times the student used the fast forward, rewind and/or pause features. These reports could also include the results of quizzes taken by the students during the study period and whether or not a student failed to respond to voice prompts, which are intended to monitor the students' attentiveness while listening to a lesson.

The foregoing and other objects are realized, in accordance with the present invention, by a method for providing educational material for students at remote locations and for generating student activity reports, which includes the main steps of storing educational material in a computer system at a central location for playback to calling students at various other locations; receiving telephone calls by the computer system from calling telephones, the telephones being operated by respective calling students; receiving from the telephones identification codes, wherein an identification code identifies a respective calling student; creating telephone call records which store the received identification codes of the respective calling students; providing the calling students interactive access, through the corresponding telephones, to the stored educational material; permitting the calling students to select educational material from the educational material stored in the computer system for playback through the corresponding telephones; monitoring the activity of the respective calling students during their access to the stored educational material, and creating student activity records based on the monitoring, wherein the student activity records are correlated to the telephone call records of the respective calling students; and generating student activity reports based on the telephone call records and the student activity records of the respective calling students.

A system for providing educational material to students at remote locations and generating student activity reports thereof is provided, including a computer system at a central location and means for coupling the computer system to a telephone network; means for recording and storing educational material in the computer system; means for receiving telephone calls at the computer system from calling telephones located at various other locations; means for receiving from the calling telephones identification codes, wherein an identification code identifies a respective calling student; means for creating telephone call records in the computer system which store the received identification codes of the calling students; means for permitting the calling students to select educational material from the educational material stored in the computer system; means for providing the respective calling students interactive access to the selected portions of the stored educational material in the computer system; means for monitoring the activity of the respective calling students during their access to the stored educational material and means for creating student activity records in the computer system based on the monitoring, wherein the student activity records are correlated by the computer system to the telephone call records of the respective calling students; and means for generating student activity reports based on the telephone call records and the student activity records of the respective calling students.

Preferably, a method of the present invention accepts only authorized telephone calls. Authorized telephone calls include calls received with preauthorized ID codes or from pre-authorized telephone numbers, or both.

Other features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following description of the invention which refers to the accompanying drawings.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a schematic overview of the overall concept of the system of the present invention;

FIGS. 2A-E show some of the reports generated by the system of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of the basic hardware and major software blocks which comprise the present invention;

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of a portion of the main computer program of the present invention;

FIGS. 5(A)-(B) are flowcharts of another portion of the main computer program of FIG. 4;

FIGS. 6(A)-(D) are flowcharts of yet another portion of the main computer program of FIG. 4;

FIG. 7 shows step S.sub.8 of the flowchart of FIG. 4; and

FIG. 8 shows the telephone I/O 32 of FIG. 3.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

Referring to the drawings, FIG. 1 illustrates the overall concept of the present invention in accordance with which a teacher (not shown) prepares a standard audio cassette on a particular subject. This cassette is then taken to the school office, where the system administrator converts the audio cassette into a computer digitized voice file using a cassette player/recorder 10 and a digitizer 12. The computer digitized voice file is then stored in a computer 22. The method and the apparatus for converting a prerecorded audio tape into a digitized voice file are well known to those skilled in the computer art and, therefore, will not be discussed in detail here. Similarly, any computer system that meets the overall requirements of the remotely operable teaching system may be used in the practice of the invention.

That evening, students 13, 14, 15 call in through the public telephone network 24, identify themselves with personal user identification codes, and access specific, class authorized, lectures or other educational material stored in the computer 22. For example, students 13, 14, 15 at remote locations dial a telephone number into telephones (not shown). In actuality, the students 13, 14, 15 communicate with the remotely operable teaching system of the present invention by dialling a specified telephone number through the touch tone keypad (not shown) or, if not available, through the rotary dial of the telephones. As a result, communication is established by the students 13, 14, 15 at remote locations with the computer 22 located at a central location such as the office of a school, via the telephone network 24. The computer 22 receives the telephone calls and processes the information transmitted by the telephones. The system of the invention is not intended to be limited to a touch tone telephone. Therefore, known devices for converting a rotary dial signal into a touch tone signal may be included in the system.

The computer 22 provides voice prompts and instructions for forwarding to the students 13, 14, 15 over the telephone lines. At the beginning of each lesson, the teacher's name and the subject matter of the instructional material may be identified for the students 13, 14, 15. The time period for the lesson may also be provided, along with any special instructions that the teacher may have for all or specific students who access the recorded material. At this point, the students 13, 14, 15 could also be informed whether they are required to take a quiz or exercise as a part of their study session. The system of the invention envisions including voice mail capabilities for use by the students 13, 14, 15 and their teachers.

After the students 13, 14, 15 have been granted access to the educational material stored in the computer 22, all their activity while connected with the system is monitored and recorded by the computer 22, as further discussed in detail below. Moreover, at a teacher's discretion any student may be denied access to any or all of the material stored in the computer 22.

The system of the invention provides each student 13, 14, 15 with individual control over the material stored in the computer 22. This includes, without being limited to, the capability of selecting from among the material provided for a particular student's grade and class. Accordingly, a student may move from one recorded lesson to another thereby having the freedom of individually arranging the study sessions. Moreover, each student 13, 14, 15 has the capability of individually controlling the particular recorded material that they are reviewing. For example, each student 13, 14, 15 may fast forward, fast rewind or pause the recording that they are listening to so as to most efficiently utilize the educational material. The recorded material and/or sections thereof may be played repeatedly. In one embodiment of the invention, the fast forward and rewind features may be timed increments, e.g., pressing 6, 6, # fast forwards the lecture five minutes ahead.

All students' activity is monitored and logged. Furthermore, if the teachers provide exercises or quizzes for testing the students, the results of each students' performance in taking these exercises are also stored in the computer 22. The system of the invention may also include the capability of allowing a student to take a quiz repeatedly, and for providing the student with the results immediately after the student completes the quiz, so that each student may self-evaluate their grasp of the educational material. In one mode, the quiz questions and the study materials may be correlated. Thereby, upon entering an incorrect response to a question, the student may operate the system to replay only that portion of the lecture where the correct answer to the quiz question can be found.

The following morning the system administrator generates reports 26, separated by grade and class, for distribution to the teachers. The reports 26 may be printed by a printer 25 connected to the computer 22.

The system may, for example, generate the following reports 26: A cumulative students' activity report, shown in FIG. 2A, which details overall students' usage and activity including programs accessed, time elapsed on each program, sections of program selected, time spent on each selection and total elapsed time for each user. This list of information that can be provided in the reports is not intended to be exhaustive, but is given merely as an example. Therefore, any reports that facilitate the function intended for the remotely operable teaching system may be generated by the system.

Individual student activity reports, shown in FIGS. 2B and 2C, which print out the activity of each individual student to demonstrate how much an individual student is using the system. A detailed version for each individual student, shown in FIG. 2B, can print information on each day's usage by an in