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Can Eye-Tracking be used to improve and bring legitimacy to on-line education?In recent years, there has been a rapid increase in the demand for education services that are flexible for the student. Many institutions have turned to on-line courses to fill this need, but it is at the cost of direct interaction with Professors and peers. We believe eye-tracking can help.

User Profile:

Age: 56Occupation: Astronomy Professor, LSU

IntroductionIn many Universities, limits in staff numbers and funding dictate the range of subjects that can be offered. While departments hope to cater electives that may interest the majority of the students within a given discipline, there are often cases where a student wishes to study a subject outside the offerings of the college. Currently, this is usually limited to students taking physical classes with neighboring colleges that have reciprocal agreements, but what if the interests of the student is not studied in the immediate vicinity? To this end, we are proposing an on-line learning environment that allows students to actively participate in classes held by renowned Professors over long distance.

How the System Works:

Possible ComplicationsAlthough the new system improves on the existing model, there are still some shortcomings that need to be addressed. These include:•The method of switching control of the eye-tracking functions• The programming to allow PDF homework that would allow feedback to be given to the lecturer•The ability to differentiate between areas of interest and areas of complication when reading the

PDF documents

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Steve is an Astronomy Professor at a big college in California. With the comforts of a large expensive telescope he can conduct effective research. His lectures involve plenty of pictorial content and readings, which he prefers to display digitally to the class. He assigns homework and readings to over one-hundredandfiftystudentsandmaintainstestsand quizzes.

A class is in session where the teacher has a projector and students are equipped with Laptops.

Stevenoticesaflashingiconon his computer indicating that a student online is asking a question.

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Steve is able to manage his coarse material from the laptop while displaying pictures and readingsfluidly.

The student refers to a pictureon the software and questions on the location of a specificconstellation. Steve points the area of importance with his eyes and can reinforce by sketching with the mouse.

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Students from other campusesare linked up to the teaching content through the web and are able to connect with voiceand eye tracking data.

For homework students are assigned a reading, which becomes registered as complete by tracking eye data.

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A student in the classroom asks a question about the readings and as the teacher reads a key passage, eye tracking data is streamed across his computer and visible by students in class and across the net.

More complex data such as troubled sections in readings, and areas of interest in pictorial content are relayed to Steve to review and use for the next lecture.