1) The heavy use of computers in teaching cases, histology atlases, neuroscience, radiology etc. requires that many students be able to look at the same image at the same time. With a total of 21 small tutorial rooms and a commitment to integrating computer images and software in the curriculum, the new Education Center was faced with the cost and maintenance of 21 data/video projectors for concurrent image or video viewing. The alternative was a software solution.

An Interactive Classroom application was designed using Apple's Application Technology, QuickTime Conferencing (QTC). The result enables students and teachers to work in groups (called "classrooms") of up to 12. One workstation (called the "instructor") drives the session, calling up images and controlling pointers that are seen simultaneously on all workstations. Once the instructor has opened the classroom, students join. The instructor can call up an image, which is immediately distributed throughout the classroom. On it is the instructor's pointer, in yellow, which is controlled by the instructor's mouse, but visible on all workstations simultaneously. By clicking on the image, a student can request a pointer of a different color, which is also visible on all workstations. Additional features enable managing student pointers, image placement and zooming, image overlays. (A videotape demonstration of this application will be shown.)

2) Delivering streaming real-time video to the desktop computer from a server and being able to simultaneously send more than one video at the same time is desirable. For example, first year students are viewing a patient interview and second years students are watching a psychiatric interview in different rooms and at different computers on the same network. Following viewing on the computers they continue to discuss the video with the facilitator in their small groups of 12 students.

3) A plug-in extension for CUsee-Me (free Internet videoconferencing software) called Scripter permits a multimedia conference to be presented concurrently at multiple sites by controlling the remote computer with Applescripts delivered over the Internet This permits remote presentation of digitized slides, control of software for animation, control of CD-ROM and even videodisc with practically no delay. Scripter requires that identical software and media are installed on the remote computer. In this way the same multimedia-rich lecture could be given at multiple sites. Or, students at distant hospitals doing the same rotation, could gather for weekly lectures at the outlying sites. (A videotape of a lecture 2000 miles away, as well as scenes from the delivery site, will be shown).

4) PathMaker is another plug-in for CU-SeeMe (and now QuickTime Conferencing application) that allows digital or video camera images from a microscope or other source to be compiled into a case with attached commentary for conferences in radiology, pathology or similar image intense disciplines. A case is essentially a slide or film set with text and voice annotations, each image being distributed much as in the interactive classroom (see 1 above). Cases can be downloaded in advance from an FTP site to help with efficiency of distribution.

5) Conversion of PowerPoint presentations to images that can be rapidly sent as part of PathMaker Teleconferencing is another application that can be used for lectures. This permits a PowerPoint presentation to be viewed at multiple sites without any intermediate steps for picture conversion.