Classroom Technologies

I recently wrote a post for Marieke Guy’s blog, Ramblings of a Remote Worker, which can now be found at: http://drgn.in/gcjgfP

The item looks to answer the following questions:

• What is Lecture Capture?
• Why is it significant?
• Why Panopto?
• How is the service supported?
• Where next?

Should you have any further questions following the read, do post a comment on the blog itself, or get in touch with me by email.

Last Wednesday, over forty colleagues from a number of different institutions across the HE and FE sectors attended  the third ESTICT (”Engaging Students Through In-Class Technologies”) event at the University of Bath.

The event was opened by Nashville-based Dr. Derek Bruff, author of Teaching with Classroom Response Systems: Creating Active Learning Environments (Jossey-Bass, 2009), who presented a sparkling virtual keynote on the role of Electronic Voting Systems (EVS) within learning and teaching, before moving onto the role of the backchannel in the classroom.

Despite not being at the event physically, Derek’s keynote was incredibly well received with delegates engaged by the insightful and inspiration nature of the talk. The backchannel that Derek’s touched on during his talk was also utilised by those present, who interacted with both Google Moderator and the #estict Twitter tag with good effect.

Following this, four practitioner-led short presentations showcased a range of pedagogical applications of technologies, which colleagues keen to focus on enhancing the student learning experience through the use of such applications and tools.

The afternoon ESTICT Technology Fair provided delegates the opportunity to get hands-on with a variety of technologies that could be used in the classroom, such as digital pens (Livescribe and Papershow), a Sympodium tablet, visualisers, Flipcams, iPads and TurningPoint EVS, with the accompanying brochure proving to be especially useful.

A number of post-event delegate reflections have appeared on the blogs of presenters and delegates, as listed below.

• Derek Bruff, Vanderbilt University [blog post]
• Kate Reader, City University London [blog posts: part 1, part 2]
• Roger Gardner, University of Bristol [blog post]
• Zak Mensah, JISC Digital Media [blog post]
• Janice Kiugu, Roehampton University [blog post]
• Derek Morrison, Higher Education Academy [blog post]

The full range of resources from the event, including presentation recordings and slides, along with handouts and downloaded, are now available so do head along to the ESTICT @ Bath resources wiki at: http://go.bath.ac.uk/estictbath

To join the ESTICT Online Community, do head along to http://estict.ning.com.

ESTICT @ Bath was sponsored by Reivo Ltd., the exclusive distributors of TurningPoint in the UK.

The following presentation is due to be delivered later on this morning for colleagues at UKOLN. It gives a brief introduction to the Panopto Lecture Capture solution, providing a rationale for, and examples of, use in learning and teaching at the University of Bath.

If you would like to find out more about how to use Panopto to support your learning and teaching related activities, please do get in touch either on 01225 384 392 or via email at e-learning@bath.ac.uk.

N.B. This presentation was recorded using Panopto and can be found on the CourseCast server.

The number of Panopto recordings scheduled by the Audio Visual Unit has increased significantly since the start of the semester. Now that this lecture capture software is an institutional service, a number of colleagues have been getting in touch recently asking how they might edit their recordings.

Often, it is simply a case of cutting the first and last five minutes of a recording. With the move to a newer version of Panopto a few weeks ago, editing a recording is easier than ever before. The Panopto Editor lets you create multiple versions, called “edits”, of recorded sessions. The edit called default is created automatically, and contains the entire recording.

It is possible to modify default or create additional edits without affecting the original session content. Editing is a non destructive process, and as such, any undesired changes can easily be reverted.

Instructions on how to edit recordings, along with a number of other Panopto related items, can be found on the Learning Technologies FAQs database at: http://drgn.in/d3pkxV

Declan Fleming, based in the Department of Chemistry, has recently been reflecting on use of the instutional lecture capture service, Panopto. As a Teacher Fellow based at the University of Bath, Declan is currently looking at assessment methods at HE level: how assessment strategies used in secondary education might be applied to HE and also how to best support students in preparing them for assessment methods traditionally used in HE. He will also be investigating ways in which to develop the use of VLEs within the HE curriculum.

As part of this work, Declan has been sitting in on a range of lectures including those of Professor Ian Williams, who is using Panopto [integrated into the units' corresponding Moodle course] to support some of his teaching.

To read Declan’s thoughts, do head along to his blog post at: http://my.rsc.org/blogs/73/266.

If you’d like further information on Classroom Technologies, including Panopto, and are considering using them to  enhance your learning and teaching related activities, please contact me at e-learning@bath.ac.uk.

Earlier today, I headed along to the recently refurbished room, 4 East 2.4, for a demonstration of the Panopto Coursecast Live Broadcast functionality.

This approach is due to be used during the 2010/11 as a means of coping with larger cohorts which are unable to be located within a single room during a lecture. During this, the majority of students will be located in a given teaching space, with a smaller number located nearby in another room, where a live broadcast of the lecture will take place.

Attended by a range of colleagues from across the university campus, members of the Audio Visual unit led by Sacha Goodwin, AV Recorded Media Production Manager, gave a demonstration of a Live Broadcast. With Sacha demo-ing teaching from 241-seater the Arts Lecture Theatre, members of staff watched proceedings from another part of the university campus. The image on the right gives an idea of what audience members saw – click on it to enlarge.

A wide ranging discussion took place over the course of the 30 minute session, and some of the key items coverd are summarised below.

However, it should be stressed that whilst Panopto has been moved to a production server, it is still an ongoing project, where the Audio Visual unit are in constant liaison with the Panopto people in the US to improve performance, and find permanent solutions to some of the issues identified below.

Key Points

• There is no significant additional overhead for any lecturer engaging in a Panopto live broadcast, aside from [1] ensuring that they are using a lapel microphone, and [2] they use the visualiser (if required) rather than a chalkboard.
• There is a 3-5 second delay between items being changed on screen – for example, slide transitions and web pages – to them appearing in the broadcast room. As such, the audio can often be out of sync with what appears on screen. [This is not ideal when showing any material from YouTube, for example]

Issues

• The PC in 4 East 2.4 went to sleep during the demonstration lecture, so the time lapse for the screen saver to activate due to no PC activity should be increased.
• Some of the items displayed on the visualiser did not come out as clearly as expected over the broadcast – in particular, some of the annotation of diagrams using a normal biro and text on web pages. Using a thicker pen, as well as adjusting the zoom on the visualiser, was suggested.

Things to keep in mind

• Even if you are in a teaching room with dual projection capabilities, the lecturer will only be able to display one item in the larger Panopto box area [see image above].
• Rather than use a chalkboard, lecturers should use a visualiser instead. Not only will the material be easier for those in the lecture theatre to see, those in the overflow room will be able to see it too. Additionally, anything displayed via the visualiser, will be captured as part of the Panopto recording.
• In the overflow room, another member of staff needs to be present (at least at the beginning of a lecture) to log on to the PC (using an AV-issued generic username), open up a web browser and launch the Panopto Live Broadcast.
• Items highlighted by laser pointers in the lecture theatre will not be broadcast. In these cases, it would be best to draw attention to such items using a (normal) mouse pointer.

It was great to see the Panopto Live Broadcast functionality, in particular, to begin to identify its potential for use in a learning and teaching context. Over the course of the next academic year, I intend to follow up with colleagues who will be using Panopto to capture their teaching and disseminate via this blog.

But in the meantime, if you’d like further information on Classroom Technologies, or would like to use it to enhance your learning and teaching related activities, please contact me at e-learning@bath.ac.uk.

The Panopto Coursecast lecture capture service from http://coursecast.bath.ac.uk will be unavailable this Wednesday 29 September 2010. It is anticipated the service will be down for most of the day.

Computing Services (BUCS) will be upgrading the Panopto Coursecast lecture capture server from the current trial service to a full service that will have duplication of critical systems to help ensure resilience in the future.

We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your patience and understanding.  For any queries related to this, please contact bucs-info@bath.ac.uk.