Self Inflating Blue Screen for $60

Self Inflating Blue Screen
as Background

Self Inflating Blue Screen
with background in Zoom

Still on my quest for a low cost, lightweight, movable background screen for video conferences, I am now trying one which is self inflating. Preparing for a camping trip, I got out the sleeping mats and was going to show to someone on Zoom. I then realized that the mat is rigid enough to stand up by itself and is similar in color to a chroma-key blue screen. 

Single Self Inflating Mattress

I have two mats with clips along the sides to make a double. So I joined them, and stood them up behind me, set Zoom to use blue, rather than green, screen and it worked. The dimpled pattern on the mats, and the join between them, are hidden by Zoom's algorithm, and the blue background is replaced with whatever image I choose.

These are two Single Self Inflating Mattresses ($19 each) from a local store. They are 650 x 1900 mm each, and three would be needed for a practical screen (1,950 mm wide), which would stand up by itself.

Media Rich Asynchronous Online Education with OB3

Gloria Gomez

Greetings from ASCILITE 2021 at UNE. This morning there are workshops, and I am in "STUDENTS AND TEACHERS CO-DESIGNING MEDIA-RICH DOCUMENT RESOURCES IN AN ASYNCHRONOUS VIRTUAL PERSONAL LEARNING ENVIRONMENT". This is with the product OB3 from NZ, presented by Gloria Gomez. I was worried this would just be a sales pitch, but it is well founded in pedagogy, addressing a real problem, and could be applied with other tools.

The issue of engaging asynchronous materials is one I have been investigating since I stared teaching at a university 20 years ago. I have had supervised individual students and teams working building a "Async-Sync Learning System", with limited success.

The examples used for the workshop were from University of Sydney medical courses, which have a lot in common with the STEM computer courses I teach. The model where students jointly create course content in the form of a Wiki, and review it, could be applied in computing and other STEM subjects. With this approach students are assessed both on content contribution and collaboration.

Having been a student of collaborative work, and set it for a class with hundreds of students, the question for me was how not to get overwhelmed by the quantity of detail to assess. 

OB3 provides a system for students to jointly assemble complex documents, with tutors able to keep track which student contributed what. What could be added to this, I suggest, is a way for students to peer assess, and then the tutor assess the peer assessment. That would help with situations like mine, in ANU Techlauncher, where I have hundreds of students to keep track of.

Reference

Gomez, G., Daellenbach, R., Kensington, M., Davies, L., & Petsoglou, C. (2017). Benefits of enabling lecturers and students to author, share and discuss media-rich documents for online study. In Digital poster presented at ASCILITE 2017 at 34th International Conference on Innovation, Practice and Research in the Use of Educational Technologies in Tertiary Education. http://2017conference.ascilite.org/program/benefits-of-enabling-lecturers-and-students-to-author-share-and-discuss-media-rich-documents-for-online-study-2/

Australian Government Strategy for International Education

The Australian Ministers for Education, Trade, and Immigration, , Alan Tudge, Dan Tehan, and Alex Hawke, released an Australian Strategy for International Education 2021‑2030, on 26 November 2021. This is a relatively easy read at 32 pages. Note that this is an Australian Government strategy, not one issued by Australian educators, or institutions. 

As the forward points out million of international graduates of Australian universities have become leaders in their countries, whereas others have contributed as Australian citizens. At the same time this is a $40B a year export industry. The new strategy's priority is for "Diversification", after COVID-19 reduced the flow of students from China and India to Australian campuses. The obvious solution, outlined in the strategy is to attract students from other countries, and to teach some of these students, at least part of the time, online. 

However, the risk in having students from a few countries travel to Australia to study was obvious when SARS-CoV-1 closed campuses in the East Asia, in 2002. This was 19 years before SARS-CoV-2 again closed campuses. Unfortunately, the Australian government and Australian university, either did not learn the lesson for forgot it. In 2016/17 I warned in talks and articles that Australian universities should be ready with online leaning in case an emergency kept international students away.

While 19 years late, the Australian Government's recognition of the need for diversification is welcome. However, it will take a considerable amount of funding and policy work to have Australian universities re-skill, reequip to attract students from other countries and provide them with quality online education. There are no substantive proposals or funding commitments in the strategy to achieve this. There is no clear direction set as to what countries are to be targeted (the obvious being Indonesia).

The Australian Strategy for International Education is similar to the Australian Government's recent climate change strategy: a decade late, lacking in detail, and funding. In 2016 I was not thinking of a pandemic keeping international students from campus, but a military confrontation in the region. Such a confrontation could happen at any time, resulting in almost all students having to leave Australia.

In addition to the short term risk from a regional emergency, in 2016 I warned of the long term risk from increased international competition, both for international students and Australian domestic students.  As well as Canada (where I studied*), UK & US, Australian institutions have to compete with China's Belt and Road Education Plan.

* In 2013 I looked for a graduate education program to undertake. I first looked at programs at universities in the city where I live, then at ones I could study at online in Australia. However, I ended up an online international student, in a quality program which was cheaper than studying in Australia. As part of my studies I investigated the threat to Australian universities from increased competition, and how they could provide quality online and blended programs to remain in business. I will be discussing this at EdTechPosium, in Canberra, 10 December 2021.

Mobile and Socially Constructed Blended Learning with Activity Theory a Response to COVID-19

Next Tuesday at ASCILITE 2021, I have sixty seconds to speak on "Mobile learning and socially constructed blended learning through the lens of Activity Theory". The reason I have only a minute is that there are nine authors for the paper (Vickel Narayan, Thom Cochrane, Neil Cowie, Paul Goldacre, James Birt, David Sinfield, Alizadeh Mehrasa, Tom Worthington and Stephen Aiello). That might sound an impossible task, but we managed it last year at ASCILITE 2020. This is much easier to do online, than with a crowd of people on a stage.  

I am not much of a theory person, and the idea of applying Activity Theory comes from my coauthors. All I am doing is describing how I modified my teaching slightly last year for COVID-19. But the point we are collectively making I suggest is an important one. Mobile devices and collaborative tools were effective by connecting students with each other, and with their teachers. This I suggest has been far more important than replicating old fashioned lectures and examinations online. As an online student myself for years, I felt the loneliness of long distance study. With the pandemic behind us, it is important for Australian universities to engage students and not slip back into lazy habits of offering dull lectures and then blaming students for not attending.

Our paper differs from many recent ones which describe heroic and radical changes which had to be made to teaching practice to move from classroom based to online. The difference was that as tech literate educators we had less to do to move our teaching online. 

I moved to pure online teaching ten years ago, then in the last few years had been incorporating some classroom elements. As someone with a background in dealing with emergencies using tech, my teaching was designed with an online contingency, so that if an emergency kept students from campus, it could all be done online. That is what happened with COVID-19.

ASCILITE 2021

ASCILITE 2021 is on from 29 November to 1 December at University of New England in Armidale (NSW), and online. I am a joint author for one poster, a paper, and as a mentor.

It is good to see ASCILITE have decided to retain dual mode for the conference: in person or reasonably priced online.*

Here are the topics which caught my interest in the draft paper.

Conference — Program Day One

9:30 — 10:30 am Session #1 — Keynote Speaker: Professor Sarah Pearson, University of Queensland.

11:00 — 12:00 pm Parallel Session #2

Session 2 - Stream A Virtual Worlds in Education. Why are they not centre stage in online learning in a pandemic? - Lisa Jacka, Sue Gregory and Steven Warburton ID: 33

Session 2 - Stream B A systematic approach to learning design for supervisor training in a specialist medical college - Jorge Reyna, Santosh Khanal, Victoria Baker-Smith and Ellen Cooper CP ID: 15 Advancing the scholarship of teaching and learning using educational drama - Rajeev Kamineni CP ID: 20

Session 2 - Stream C Capability development by educational technology - Cedomir Gladovic CP ID: 38

Session 2 - Stream D Benchmarking educational quality – an independent analysis and alternative approach - Stanislaw Paul Maj CP ID: 7

12:00 — 1:00 pm— Lunch + ASCILITE AGM —1:00 — 2:30 pmParallel Session #3

Session 3 - Stream A Sponsor Session Chair: Steph Toole AccountingPod - Sponsor Demo Pedestal 3D - Sponsor Demo

Session 3 - Stream B Managing Career Transitions into post-secondary Learning Designer Jobs: An Australasian Perspective - Michael Sankey and Jack Sage FP ID: 91

Session 3 - Stream C Exploring the social aspects of student collaboration in online learning - Shahed Kamal, Margaret Bearman, Joanna Tai and Brandi Fox FP ID: 40

Session 3 - Stream D Implementing pedagogies of care in online teacher education - Dewa Wardak FP ID: 11

2:30 — 3:00 pm— Break —3:00 — 4:30 pm Parallel Session #4

Session 4 - Stream A Panel Session An integrated framework for non-formal to formal learning in Queensland - Professor Kevin Ashford-Rowe, Dr Donna Harvey and Margo Griffith ID: 49

Session 4 - Stream B The Role of the Lecture in Post Pandemic IHLs: Possibilities and Implications from a Singapore Case Study - Ganthi Viswanathan and Marnie O'Neill FP ID: 16 The Use of WeChat in Higher Education: Investigation of Chinese Students in Australia - Daeyoung Kim and Shanton Chang FP ID: 89

Session 4 - Stream C New way of investigating ICT-enhanced teaching in TAFE Australia: Disciplinary Focused - Shahadat Khan and Sue Gregory CP ID: 97

Session 4 - Stream D Chair: Special Interest Groups Contextualising the horizon

Conference — Program Day Two
9:30 — 11:00 am	Pecha Kucha & Poster Session - Session #6
Pecha Kucha For a full list of Pecha Kucha presentations click here. To read abstracts, click here Poster Session 6 Stream C Pecha Kucha Session 6 Stream A Chair: Steph Toole Pecha Kucha Session 6 Stream B Chair: Samuel Bugden
11:30 — 12:30 pm	Parallel Session #7
Session 7 - Stream A Panel Session D2L Panel Jan Owen - Chair and Convenor, Learning Creates Australia Prof Shelley Kinash - Executive Principal Student Experience, University of New England Tony Maguire – Regional Director, ANZ at D2L Emeritus Prof Martin Bean – CEO The Bean Centre (past Vice Chancellor, RMIT University) Session 7 - Stream B Design and development of a large Business School core interdisciplinary unit to foster blended learning during the Pandemic - Abdul Razeed and Thea Werkhoven FP ID: 9 Session 7 - Stream C Pedagogy Before Technology: Understanding the Confidence of Vocational Educators for Integrating Technology Enhanced Learning - Robert Vanderburg, Michael Cowling and Joanne Dargusch FP ID: 82 Enhancing students’ employability skills and experiential learning through integration of Xero software - Gregory Jones, Hazel Jones, Claire Beattie and Dom Pensiero FP ID: 84 Session 7 - Stream D Special Interest Groups
3:00 — 4:30 pm	Parallel Session 8
Session 8 - Stream A Panel Session Digging deeper into the ethical use of learning analytics - Linda Corrin, Hazel Jones and Srecko Joksimovic ID: 69 Session 8 - Stream B Back to what? What STEM and Health teaching academics learnt from COVID - Christopher Bridge, Birgit Loch, Dell Horey, Brianna Julien, Belinda Thompson and Julia Agolli FP ID: 52 Deakin Launch Network: an employability network that improves engagement, graduate outcomes and wellbeing by connecting and leveraging the expertise of diverse students and alumni - Trina Jorre de St Jorre FP ID: 96 Session 8 - Stream C Exploring students’ experience with and perceptions towards eLearning in an online public health module - Charlene Goh, Kit Yung Tan and Andre Matthias Müller CP ID: 65 Employability focused technology enhanced hybrid and online accounting capstone experience - Christine Contessotto, Edwin Lim and Harsh Suri CP ID: 70 Mobile learning and socially constructed blended learning through the lens of Activity Theory - Vickel Narayan, Thom Cochrane, Neil Cowie, Paul Goldacre, James Birt, David Sinfield, Alizadeh Mehrasa, Tom Worthington and Stephen Aiello CP ID: 57 Embedding the Development of Graduate Qualities of International Postgraduate IT Students in the Disciplinary Subject - Ping Yu, Siyu Qian, Zhenyu Zhang, Lina Markauskaite, Jun Shen and Ting Song CP ID: 71 Session 8 - Stream D AJET and the future of scholarly publication - Linda Corrin, Gwo-Jen Hwang, Jason Lodge and Kate Thompson - AJET Lead Editors About AJET; publishing and reviewing - Linda Corrin, Gwo-Jen Hwang, Jason Lodge and Kate Thompson - AJET Lead Editors

Conference — Program Day Three
9:00 — 10:30 am	Panels Session #9
Session 9 - Stream A Hiring practices: an analysis of higher education in Australasia - Nhung Nguyen, Camille Dickson-Deane, Keith Heggart and Mounika Ragula ID: 31 Session 9 - Stream B Community Mentoring Program  Session 9 - Stream C Learning to Research in Distance Mode: Technologies for Building Higher Degree Research Community Online - Nikki Rumpca, Ariella Van Luyn, Adele Nye and Huw Nolan CP ID: 64 A proposal to measure the Impact of Automated Response Systems on Meeting Student Learning Outcomes - Josiah Koh, Michael A Cowling, Meena Jha and Kwong Nui Sim CP ID: 41 Session 9 - Stream D Sustainable learning design in large transformational teaching and learning initiatives - Courtney Shalavin and Elaine Huber CP ID: 80 Exploring industry-university partnerships in the creation of short courses and micro-credentials - Rachel Fitzgerald and Henk Huijser CP ID: 67
10:30 — 11:00 am	— Break —
11:00 — 12:30 pm	Parallel Session #10
Session 10 - Stream A Panel Session Online proctored exams: the good, the bad, and the meh - Phillip Dawson, Michael Henderson and Lesley Sefcik ID: 27 Session 10 - Stream B The use of a publishing platform to facilitate the adaptation and development of Open Textbooks: A Pilot Report - Kate Nixon and Katya Henry FP ID: 87 On the Need for Open Teaching on the JamStack - William Billingsley CP ID: 68 Embedding wholistic learning: Designing curated eLearning processes for social work students - Prue Atkins and Katie Sykes CP ID: 50 Session 10 - Stream C Providing Equitable Education through Personalised Adaptive Learning - Punithavathy Palanisamy, Shamini Thilarajah and Zihui Chen CP ID: 76 Increasing Student Grades in Large Online Subjects: Combining Tutorial Support with Technology - Kelly Linden, Ben Hicks and Neil Van der Ploeg CP ID: 88 Session 10 - Stream D The silver lining of COVID-19 – improving operational processes - Sabina Cerimagic and Dewa Wardak CP ID: 4 From Pandemic to Endemic: Examining Transitions in Blended Learning in Teacher Education - Shamini Thilarajah and Renuka Nasendran CP ID: 37
12:30 — 2:00 pm	— Lunch + Special Interest Groups — Read SIGS information here
2:00 — 2:30 pm	That's a wrap! Handover

* It should be kept in mind that not everyone can get to a conference in person. They may not be able to afford the trip, they may have family,  or community obligations, or have illness or disability which prevents attendance. The last two years shows that an acceptable conference experience can be provided online. In my view it is ethically, and perhaps legally unacceptable to not provide the option.