Multimodal Interaction
In the Networked Presentations section we have shown how MindXpres instances can form networks and how hardware can be integrated in the network for usage in combination with the running presentation. Other that audience-oriented functionality the same mechanism offers opportunities to integrate hardware for presenter interaction. Current tools often focus on using the keyboard or the mouse, but MindXpres' plug-in architecture allows developers to create all kinds of software or hardware solutions for interacting with the presentation. Implemented examples include, but are not limited to:
- Dedicated customisable presenter views running on a smartphone or tablet
- Gesture-based interaction via the Microsoft Kinect or Mio Gesture Armband
- Navigation based on laserpoint tracking on the projection screen
- Annotating slides by drawing on a mobile device or by using digital pens (e.g. LiveScribe)
Relevant Publications
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Roels, R., Vermeylen, C. and Signer, B.: "A Unified Communication Platform for Enriching and Enhancing Presentations with Active Learning Components", 2014, Proceedings of ICALT 2014, 14th IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies, Athens, Greece, July 2014 (best paper award)
Feature Overview
In MindXpres everything is a plug-in. From the way content is visualised and navigated all the way down to basic components such as images or text, anything can be configured or even replaced.
The plug-in mechanism allows presenters to choose the presentation visualisation style that suits their content and use case. This includes classic slide sequences, zoomable user interfaces as known from Prezi or other innovative visualisation.
Long gone are the days of static slides with bullet lists and images only. MindXpres plug-ins might provide rich media visualisations reacting to the presenter's or even the audience's input.
MindXpres allows you to focus on the content instead of spending time on styling and layout. Pick a theme, provide the content and let MindXpres worry about the visualisation.
Presentations can also be authored via a declarative language that functions similar to LaTeX. However, in contrast to LaTeX the language can be used to define more dynamic and interactive presentations with access to all MindXpres features and functionality.
Instances of a MindXpres presentation can connect to each other which, for instance, allows audience members to have a mirrored view of what is shown by the presenter on their devices. Other use cases include audience-driven activities such as voting or crowd-sourced note taking.
Regardless of the chosen visualisation style, the user decides in which order content is presented, either by predefining a path or by using one of the many interfaces to efficiently navigate the content in real-time.
MindXpres presentations can not only connect to each other but all kinds of hardware can be integrated in the network for navigation, interaction or audience participation. Examples include customised presenter interfaces running on a mobile device, clickers for audience input or specialised hardware for gesture or voice recognition.
MindXpres generates presentations based on web technologies allowing them to run offline or online, on both computers and mobile devices without the need to install any software. Furthermore, presentations can easily be put online and viewers can replay the presentation as it was given, or explore the presentation by themselves.
Instead of storing presentations in separate presentation files, MindXpres stores all user content in a central repository. This makes it easier to reuse and share content at any granularity, and also allows users to keep content that is part of multiple presentations synchronised and up to date.