Web-based video indexing and retrieval for teaching and learning

Constructivist approaches to learning focus on students’ ability to construct knowledge themselves rather than directly receiving from the teachers. At this end, a highly visual environment to provide authentic learning experiences is essential to students. In this paper, we draw on the recent development in visual information retrieval and multimedia database concepts to develop the framework of a web-based interactive video indexing and retrieval environment. This rich learning environment allows the students to anchor into different aspects of the video contents for in-depth analysis and collaborative learning. An on-going project of a micro-teaching system using digital video cases is being developed. This system makes use of streaming technologies and SMIL to provide multimedia synchronization standard over the web. We demonstrate the conceptual framework of this learning environment and the initial results of this system in this paper.