WorldWideWhiteboard is a Web-based online collaboration and conferencing tool designed for use in distance education. The WorldWideWhiteboard domain, trademark, and technology are owned and developed by Link-Systems International, Inc. (LSI), a privately held distance-learning software corporation in Tampa, Florida. The WorldWideWhiteboard went live in 1996 under the name "NetTutor," although the LSI NetTutor online tutoring service is technically just one implementation of the WorldWideWhiteboard product. Version 3.8 of the WorldWideWhiteboard is in use not only in the current NetTutor online tutoring service, but also in on-campus online tutoring programs, online courses, and collaborative learning environments in the U.S. and around the world. As a Java applet, it can be run on Windows, Mac, and Linux and runs without downloading software. LSI maintains the application and leases both hosted and unhosted access to it. LSI operations — tutoring, product development, online content services, management, and technical support — are housed in the company's Tampa offices.
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History
The WorldWideWhiteboard is the first software product developed by Link-Systems International (LSI). LSI was launched in 1995 primarily as a company that converted text-based content like scholarly journals into an SGML format. Incorporated in the State of Florida on February 27, 1996, LSI expanded its mission to the Web-based implementation of a variety of traditionally face-to-face academic activities. The company developed what it called the "Net Tutor" product that included a whiteboard-like interface and, later, a tutoring service that used the whiteboard to conduct online tutoring. For about five years, the software side of this product leased as NetTutor to schools, individual educators, and programs, for example to conduct online tutoring using tutors provided by the institution, as well as for online instruction and office hours. Eventually, LSI re-christened the interface the WorldWideWhiteboard. The company still owns the NetTutor trademark, which refers to the online tutoring it supplies via the WorldWideWhiteboard and using professional tutors it employs.
This history seems to justify the company's claim that it was the first to offer commercially a tool for Web access to a shared, real-time environment with such education-oriented features as subject-specific tool bars. The WorldWideWhiteboard was also adopted as an option available with certain text-books by publishers such as McGraw-Hill, John Wiley and Sons, Pearson, Cengage Learning, and Bedford, Freeman and Worth. The use of the WorldWideWhiteboard by campuses and educational programs to support online environments, give classes, hold faculty office hours and meetings expanded over the next decade.
In 2010, LSI began development of an HTML5 version of the WorldWideWhiteboard. This version has now replaced the earlier, Java-based version and allows for the use of the interface on mobile devices. This is one of several cases where software developers have opted for browser-based development, counting on the future development of HTML5 API's to support audio and video interaction, rather than self-standing phone apps. As of 2013, installations of WorldWideWhiteboard had been converted from Java-based to HTML5-based versions.
As the WorldWideWhiteboard gained more popularity, LSI came to be included in the Inc. 5000 in 2014.
Breadth of use
The WorldWideWhiteboard product was apparently the first successful web collaboration tool in wide use in education. Online whiteboards generally can accommodate a theoretically unlimited number of participants and an instructor in a synchronous, i.e., live interactive session. The WorldWideWhiteboard allows for both audio and up to four video streams, as well as numerous asynchronous modes of interaction.
Certain of these studies have been cited widely, mainly because of the seminal role of the WorldWideWhiteboard as an educational Web-conferencing tool. (See, for instance, Reushle and Loch in "Conducting a Trial Web Conferencing Software." and the Abraham Baldwin Agricultural College Quality Enhancement Plan for 2007)
This research suggests that all the forms of expression — including video and audio interaction — available on the WorldWideWhiteboard can be successfully used in the classroom.
Other questions raised by scholars include:
While these questions, educators agree, are not fully decided, more recent study suggests that the student-centered dialog possible on the WorldWideWhiteboard encourages learner persistence and success.
How it works
Learners and educators usually log into a WorldWideWhiteboard site through a campus interface for an online tutoring program or online course. The site may be hosted either by the school or by LSI. As an example, the WorldWideWhiteboard is fully assimilated into a learning center is the Center for Math Excellence at the University of Phoenix, where a student with access to the center engages the campus tutor in live discussion on the WorldWideWhiteboard.
Many universities implement the WorldWideWhiteboard through a link in the school's virtual learning environment (VLE). Web portals, learning management systems like Blackboard, Moodle, or Sakai are examples of VLEs. Since only registered students have access to the VLE, no further sign-on is required. This allows the institution reasonable security in granting access to the WorldWideWhiteboard for any type of online communication.
Schools may choose to allow only certain students to log in. Schools can also arrange for the WorldWideWhiteboard to appear differently to different sets of students.
Learners log in as "participants" and the educator—teacher or tutor—logs in as the "leader." Upon logging in, the user sees a dashboard displaying icons representing WorldWideWhiteboard centers for different learning activities. Most activities involve the use of a Java applet with a whiteboard, chat-line, menu bar, and toolbar. If enabled, a listing of participants, icons enabling audio and video enabling, and a side-bar holding up to four live video feeds.
Online communication occurs in either a one-to-many, one-to-one, or many-to-many format. For each of these, there are educational functions served by the WorldWideWhiteboard that are synchronous (taking place in real time, or interactive) and asynchronous (taking place in steps, with the learner's portion completed, then the educator's portion, etc.).
Synchronous
The WorldsWideWhiteboard Live Classroom is its primary one-to-many environment. In this activity, the leader opens a virtual classroom, into which any number of participants can then enter. A Java applet runs, pushing the image of text and graphics input by leader or participant to a whiteboard-like interface on the computer of each user. Audio communication is also available, along with up to four streaming video feeds. The leader has control over who can supply input, whether in the form of whiteboard entries, chat-line text, or audio or video information. Also, the session can continue onto a new page. When it does so, the leader can "turn" the page so that all users see the same image at the same time. Meanwhile, all participants can send private messages to one or more of the other participants.
The leader may also post Microsoft Word, Excel, or PowerPoint documents directly on the interface. In this usage, multiple pages of the documents automatically generate additional pages to the classroom session.
Asynchronous
The leader can post work sheets containing problems or a general question to all users who have access to the WorldWideWhiteboard. Participants then fill out the worksheet, and the leader can review their responses later. Finally, the leader can post grades for worksheet responses to an online gradebook. The leader can set up alerts, or specialized notifications when student performance falls below certain levels.
Synchronous
A virtual tutoring center or faculty office environment provides the synchronous one-on-one feature of the WorldWideWhiteboard. The leader logs in and this allows participants to "line up" to see the leader. The leader, usually a tutor, views and accepts learner questions, engages in one-on-one sessions on the whiteboard interface, and can preserve past sessions for future student use.
Asynchronous
A participant can enter a question to be addressed by a tutor or teacher later.
A student can submit a paper to be reviewed and edited later by a leader—again, either a tutor or faculty member.
Participants can review archives preserved from past sessions. A leader can edit, delete, and organize archived material.
Many-to-many, asynchronous
A bulletin-board-like activity allows any user or leader to leave entries visible to all users. A leader can edit or delete these entries.
Degree of customization
The technology of the WorldWideWhiteboard is not geared to a particular pedagogic or andragogic approach. Its set of activities can therefore be used by any educator for online communication. This also means that questions about how the WorldWideWhiteboard is set up are matters for the institution to decide. LSI has no consultancy component, so that, while figures about usage of the WorldWideWhiteboard can be used to demonstrate how a school's Quality Enhancement Program is working, it is up to the user to create the documentation for this or any other accreditation-related measures.
However, each features of the WorldWideWhiteboard can be customized for use in different institutions and for different subjects. The appearance of the dashboard, symbols displayed on the whiteboard interface can be customized, as well. As an example, fractions and graphing tools may appear on an Algebra class whiteboard, while there may be integral signs as well on the toolbar for a Calculus course.