PROJECT OBJECTIVES

• To provide an environment which allows students to express their thoughts and ideas on any subject matter as part of a collaborative knowledge building process. Students articulations can incorporate multimedia elements including text, pictures, animation, sounds, and digital video.

• To provide an environment that will help nurture students independent and critical thinking skills, through discussions, debates, and knowledge co-articulation.

SYSTEM CHARACTERISTICS

• Allows students to incorporate multimedia elements directly into their messages, thus enhancing representational power.

• Supports multi-level threading of messages as seen in newsgroups.
  Adopts a user interface similar to web browsers, thus facilitating ease of use.

• Uses the QuickTime standard for digital movies and sound resources, and the JPEG and GIF graphics file format for pictures.

• Supports Video and Audio Capture using advanced Technology from Java Media Framework.

• Encourages users to contribute messages responsibly by displaying a picture of the person who sent the message. This feature also helps to foster a sense of belonging to a learning community.

Message view of the Forum with message threads above.
Illustration of the Forum's multi-threading capability.
Mind Bridges's WYSIWYG message composer illustrating it's abilty to include multimedia components.
Assessment tool in Mind Bridges showing the functionality to allow teachers to set the various percentages for pre-defined criteria.

Version 3.0

Message browsing interface

Messsage construction interface