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Remote practical-focused tutorials
- 1. Remote practical-focused tutorials Jon Rosewell Computing & Communications STEM Teaching Conference, 6 Feb 2020
- 2. TM129 Technologies in practice • 30-pt, first level • Three blocks • Robotics • Networking • Linux Operating systems • Dual presentation • Student numbers: 1500-2000 per year
- 3. Practical activity in distance learning • Residential school / day school • Home experiment kit • Student’s own kit • Simulation • Virtual reality • Remote recorded experiment • Remote live experiment • Remote demonstration • Recorded video
- 4. Video on the web – stream? Viewers Latency 1 / many 0 / long 1 / many ~ 3 s 1 < 0.1 s 1-5 ~ 0.5 s 5 + 50 ~ 0.5 s 500 30 s Thousands 30 s
- 5. Use cases for remote robot Number Access Video latency Control Student control 1 book <1 s bespoke Project student program 1 book <1 s std tools Group program 3-5 book ~ 1 s bespoke / std tools Observe autonomous 1-200 drop-in 15-30 s none / bespoke Tutor-led demo 1 + 20 LEM <1 s + 10-30 s std tools Labcast 20-200 LEM 10-30 s local
- 6. Remote practical demonstrations • Opportunity • HEFCE OpenSTEM Lab • Group tuition policy • Purposes • Engagement • Extension • Application • Not assessed – licence to explore, fail
- 7. TM129 tutorial programme Labcasts as part of a full programme 1. Introduction to TM129 2. Robotics demonstration 3. Day school parts 1 & 2 - Block 1 / TMA01 4. Introduction to Block 2 5. Networking demonstration 6. Block 2 / TMA02 7. Introduction to Block 3 8. Linux demonstration 9. Block 3 / TMA03 10. Preparing for the EMA
- 15. Labcast format • 1 hour module-wide ‘tutorial’ • ~40 mins demo • ~20 mins Q&A • Team: • Main presenter (or two, or interview) • Second person running chat & widgets • Camera person • Vision mixer • KMI Stadium Live • 15-30 sec lag widgets, chat
- 16. Labcast recordings TM129-19J Robotics https://live.kmi.open.ac.uk/webcast/b524aZ289 TM129-19J Networking http://live.kmi.open.ac.uk/webcast/3c9c6C148 Archive on Open Science Lab
- 17. Widgets
- 20. Percentage watching: live & recording Unique users: • during event • after event
- 21. Did you watch the event?
- 22. Why not?
- 23. Will you join live next time?
- 25. Attitudes? I was able to use the interface I was able to hear and see OK I found the chat window useful I thought session was the right length I found the session useful I enjoyed this session I would recommend to other students
- 26. Chat comments Really enjoyed it thanks for the demo, it's an awesome bit of kit!! Thanks for having us, this was very interesting Useful session Tutor: I was at your TM129 Baxter demo last night and just wanted to say how brilliant I thought it was. The students were really engaged with it and found it inspirational!
- 27. Questionnaire comments Seeing a live demonstration of a robot and having someone knowledgeable in the area, that could answer questions near the end was very helpful. I like the idea of the widgets and being able to interactively answer questions that the answers got explained further by the person presenting. Seeing the practical, real world use of robotics really helped me grasp the wider purpose of what I was learning. I found that giving the course material a more tangible context helped me to engage with it more strongly.
- 28. Retention
- 29. SEaM KPI
- 30. Pi clusters eSTEeM project: ‘Teaching distributed computing using Raspberry Pi clusters at a distance’, Daniel Gooch, Mike Richards, Jon Rosewell • 6 clusters of 8 Raspberry Pis • Learning about distributed computing • Remote access via OpenSTEM lab • Sample activity: image combiner • Student experiment: effect of parallelism on performance
- 31. For more info: Jon Rosewell Daniel Gooch, TM129 chair Kate Bradshaw, SWIM Team Ben Hawkridge, KMI Trevor Collins, KMI Stadium Live Venetia Brown, PhD re student community
- 32. Baxter robots Part of OpenSTEM Lab HEFCE and OU joint funded
Editor's Notes
- Remote practical-focused tutorials Jon Rosewell Computing and Communications, STEM Faculty Abstract As befits its title, Technologies in practice (TM129) takes a practical focus to learning, with up to 50% of study time having a practical aspect. The tutorial program should support this and in the past some tutors have found innovative ways of bringing practical demonstrations or exercises into their face-to-face sessions, for example demonstrating a robot vacuum cleaner or setting up an ad-hoc network of students’ laptops. Producing online tutorials with an equivalent practical focus is a challenge. For TM129 we have developed a set of labcasts which deliver practical-focused synchronous tutorial events to all students, with one demonstration for each of the three blocks of the course: Robotics, networking and Linux. These labcasts are practical demonstrations which explore equipment and techniques which extend the coverage of the module. They move beyond video by the use of ‘widgets’ and a chat window which provide opportunities for students to engage actively with the demonstration. We will briefly outline these activities and present some student evaluation results. We discuss how we plan to extend these activities into remote practical activities using OpenSTEM lab facilities. These will allow students to undertake further practical work where the student directly controls the practical activity. We will present a framework of possible use-cases for remote practical activities, considering group size, synchronicity and locus of control; discuss some of the technological and pedagogical implications; and review progress towards delivering engaging practical activities at a distance.
- TM129 as focus but issues could be general Large numbers make practical activity challenging
- Examples from robotics Range of possibilities at our disposal Res school & HEK traditional OU approach but no longer – except engineers T395 HEK from mid 80s T184 designed for Lego Mindstorms, idea that family would buy But moved to simulator, still used (for last time!) in TM129 Remote recorded and live experiments now in OpenSTEM lab – but have been done in past Focussing here on remote demonstration – long tradition of demonstration – expensive, dangerous, demanding Recorded video poor alternative – puts students in passive mode – but fall back
- Live video possible over web -- but not straightforward Always some latency in digital systems – we’ve got used to it on phones But low latency only possible with few connections Scaling up to many connections means using server and substantial lags, so have to design activities around delay
- Thinking through how can use robot, again as example Combinations of latency, number / scaling, need for booking, software used for control ‘std tools’ because robot designed to be networked, so expect access to be trivial – in fact not due to OU security policies Initial TM129 labcasts for big robots – one way to reach large numbers. Intended to develop into tutor-led demos but hasn’t happened
- OpenSTEM lab opportunity to purchase big robots But difficult to integrate into module mid life GTP refresh tutorials and possible to address cluster, not small groups, and not every tutor delivering every tutorial – specialise Topics should draw students, but not tightly linked to material – licence to play Able to innovate away from course production
- Initially pilot just robotics, advertised through forums Now all blocks and integrated into tutorial programme In LEM but not straightforward
- Student view of labcast Generous video window Interactive widgets to be used during demo Chat window – among students, Daniel responding, prompting, capturing questions for Q&A Social experience
- Our side of things – me presenting, Daniel manning chat Multiple cameras
- Behind the camera – Ben Hawkridge, usually Kate Bradshaw; Ben normally does vision mix Slightly different format – Team teach: Daniel and I demonstrating half each, other manning chat Mess of wires is a supercomputer – cluster of pis
- Having several cameras means possible to do good closeup
- Interview format – after demo, switch to interview with Mark Gaved who can link what was shown to real-world applications and research topics
- Video mixing desk – and essential mug of tea!
- Great added value by having camera person and vision mixer – closeups, laptop screen, picture-in-picture, even robot’s camera
- Needs preparation, afternoon rehearsal, one run through
- Widgets – social, SAQ Channel to presenter, respond stop students being too passive, gets them feeling part of group as does chat Range of simple types
- Here are absolute numbers Decline during each presentation Best 150, worst 30 Not large given cohort size
- Here as percentage Green is those attending live – a bit under 10% Orange shows number booking – around 20%, so only half turn up. Only integrated into LEM in 17J – maybe more attending since then Probably not dissimilar to other tutorials at level 1. Watching recording adds to numbers Labcasts get better engagement at level 2 and better again at level 3, and better yet if linked to assessment – but misses the point of tutorials 17B recording may be anomalous – surveyed so may have prompted students to look
- Total number seeing material – live and recorded, still only 15-20%
- Some evaluation of first couple of events Survey open to all on module, so not high response rate Both watched live and recording
- This was before added to tutorial programme and booking via LEM
- Good intentions to watch live – not so much in practice
- Preference for live – but not many make it Meh about most other things Definite avoiding speaking!
- Like the experience, enjoy it and would recommend But numbers don’t increase!
- Few comments from chat. Nice one from tutor after first event
- Questionnaire picks out sort of thing we want
- Has it helped retention? No – gradually declining despite all improvements
- Activity currently done as demo in labcast To be made available for students to use remotely via OpenSTEM lab, bookable sessions Activity will be part of rewrite, experimental investigation Sample activity: take photo of Christmas ducks, avoiding others Majority vote for each pixel – simple code but lots of pixels so takes appreciable time Can break up and farm out to multiple processors See speed up – but overhead of communication