Intelligent interactive broadcast education

Claim 2

Method of providing educational instruction and providing a capability of extending the instruction to at least one remote site, the method comprising: a. broadcasting instructional material, and providing said broadcast to a plurality of students; b. providing an interactivity engine for receiving input data and generating, as an output, reply data related to the input data, said reply data including student query information; c. providing a computer network connection between the interactivity engine and said plurality of students; d. using the interactivity engine to display said input data in a ranked order; e. providing said display to an instructor in a manner which permits integration of responses to said input data with said broadcast, wherein the output of the interactivity engine includes data weighted according to preselected criteria, the preselected criteria including ambiguity of the resolved search requests.

Claim 3

The method of claim 1 comprising providing said input data in the ranked order including providing a ranking in order of frequency of recurrency of characteristics of the input data.

Claim 4

The method of claim 1 comprising providing access to the reply data to the instructor simultaneously with providing of said input data, thereby permitting the instructor to use the reply data in said integration of responses.

Claim 5

The method of claim 1 comprising said interactivity engine including a computer with a searchable database.

Claim 6

The method of claim 1 comprising providing, as a part of said computer network connection, an internet connection.

Claim 7

The method of claim 1 comprising using a natural language inquiry format for interpreting data received as input data and for generating the reply data.

Claim 8

The method of claim 6 comprising ranking the input data according to a detected number of students or other users logged on, a number of inquiries, and a nature of the inquiries received.

Claim 9

Method of providing an interactive broadcast to members of an audience at a plurality of remote sites, the method comprising: a. transmitting a broadcast program and providing the broadcast to the plurality remote sites; b. providing a computer network connection between said plurality of remote sites to an interactivity engine, the interactivity engine including a computer with a database, and responsive to an input of inquiry data by searching the database for corresponding reply data; c. providing two way computer network communications between the members of the audience and the interactivity engine through said computer network connection, so that the members of the audience may provide the interactivity engine with feedback as said input of inquiry data, and receive said corresponding reply data; d. using the interactivity engine to rank said inquiry data and display, to a broadcaster, said input data in a ranked order and provide, as an output, said ranked data; e. using said display of said input data in the ranked order to provide human response to the input data during the transmission of the broadcast program, wherein the output of the interactivity engine includes data weighted according to preselected criteria, the preselected criteria including ambiguity of the resolved search requests.

Claim 10

Method of providing an interactive broadcast to members of an audience at a plurality of remote sites, the method comprising: a. transmitting a broadcast program and providing the broadcast to the plurality remote sites; b. providing a computer network connection between said plurality of remote sites to an interactivity engine, the interactivity engine including a computer with a database, and responsive to an input of inquiry data by searching the database for corresponding reply data; c. providing two way computer network communications between the members of the audience and the interactivity engine through said computer network connection, so that the members of the audience may provide the interactivity engine with feedback as said input of inquiry data, and receive said corresponding reply data; d. using the interactivity engine to rank said inquiry data and display, to a broadcaster, said input data in a ranked order and provide, as an output, said ranked data; e. using said display of said input data in the ranked order to provide human response to the input data during the transmission of the broadcast program, wherein the output of the interactivity engine includes data weighted according to preselected criteria, the preselected criteria including ambiguity of the resolved search requests.

Claim 11

The method of claim 8, comprising using the interactivity engine to provide responses to the inquiries in association with the display of the input data in a ranked order, thereby providing quick access to the responses to the broadcaster.

Claim 12

The method of claim 8, comprising using the interactivity engine to provide responses to the inquiries in a listed format to said members of the audience, thereby permitting each member of the audience to view the results of inquiries by other members of the audience.

Claim 13

Method of providing an interactive broadcast to members of an audience at a plurality of remote sites, the method comprising: a. transmitting a single broadcast program in a broadcast format, and providing the broadcast to the plurality remote sites; b. providing a computer network connection between said plurality of remote sites to an interactivity engine, the interactivity engine including a computer with a database, and responsive to an input of inquiry data by searching the database for corresponding reply data; c. providing two way computer network communications between the members of the audience and the interactivity engine through said computer network connection, so that the members of the audience may provide the interactivity engine with feedback as said input of inquiry data, and receive said corresponding reply data; d. using the interactivity engine to rank said inquiry data and display, to a broadcaster, said input data in a ranked order and provide, as an output, said ranked data; e. using said display of said input data in the ranked order to provide human response to the input data during the transmission of the broadcast program, wherein the output of the interactivity engine includes data weighted according to preselected criteria.

Claim 14

Method of providing an interactive broadcast to members of an audience at a plurality of remote sites, the method comprising: a. transmitting a single broadcast program in a broadcast format, and providing the broadcast to the plurality remote sites; b. providing a computer network connection between said plurality of remote sites to an interactivity engine, the interactivity engine including a computer with a database, and responsive to an input of inquiry data by searching the database for corresponding reply data; c. providing two way computer network communications between the members of the audience and the interactivity engine through said computer network connection, so that the members of the audience may provide the interactivity engine with feedback as said input of inquiry data, and receive said corresponding reply data; d. using the interactivity engine to rank said inquiry data and display, to a broadcaster, said input data in a ranked order and provide, as an output, said ranked data; e. using said display of said input data in the ranked order to provide human response to the input data during the transmission of the broadcast program, wherein the output of the interactivity engine includes data weighted according to preselected criteria.

Claim 15

The method of claim 11, comprising using the interactivity engine to provide responses to the inquiries in association with the display of the input data in a ranked order, thereby providing quick access to the responses to the broadcaster.

Claim 16

The method of claim 11, comprising using the interactivity engine to provide responses to the inquiries in a listed format to said members of the audience, thereby permitting each member of the audience to view the results of inquiries by other members of the audience.