Live Video for Tutorials and Laboratory Sessions Remotely

If educational institutions need to conduct tutorials and laboratory sessions remotely for off-campus students due to the Novel Coronavirus, there are video conferencing and webinar tools for this. Before going out and purchasing a tool, first check if your institution already has one, either bundled with your Learning Management System, or from your network suppler. Examples are Echo360, Adobe Connect, Zoom and Big Blue Button.

These tools do much the same thing. You use a web browser, or downloaded app to send live video from a web camera, and whatever is on your computer screen to students. The students can use a text chat window to reply. There can also be quizzes. All of this can be recorded for later replay. Students can also talk, be seen, and perhaps send what is on their screen, but that gets complicated), especially for large classes. You will want to at least have a moderator to look after the chat, while someone else does the talking.

I suggest using these synchronous tools sparingly, as a supplement to asynchronous online learning. That is, students should be able to watch a recorded video, read some notes, do some sort of exercise step, by step, in their own time. There can then be some synchronous (real-time) activities to help them.

What also helps are activities to connect students to each other online and carefully worded announcements from staff, to the class, to give the sense someone is out there. This is all part of the conventional approach developed for distance education over the last few decades.

The "Learning to Reflect" module I designed  is an example of this approach. The students read the notes, watch the videos, do the quizzes, post to forums, and reply to other students, before the live part. The student gets all the notes at the start of the course. There are also suggested regular posts for the tutor.

Live webinar on a mobile device

A few months ago I enrolled in a course about how to design courses to be delivered via mobile devices. I did not have a "mobile" device, so I purchased a 7inch Android Tablet (an XO Tablet) and a 4 inch Android phone. This week I decided to try the tablet for the Adobe Connect webinar.

I downloaded the Connect App, which was not difficult (the hard part was learning how to download Apps). The tablet has a microphone and speaker, but webinars work much better with a headset, so I plugged in the same surveillance style headset, I use for my mobile phone.

The Connect App presents an interface similar to the desktop, but simplified. There is a column of buttons on the left, a column of text chat and then a large window for presentations (there was a video window but it disappeared when the webinar started, presumably because no video was being sent).

On the 7 inch screen the slides were about 4.5 inches and are very clear and readable. On a smart phone it might be necessary to have the slides full screen.

While I could walk around with the tablet and headset, it was quickly evident I could not take part in the webinar from anywhere. I had to be in range of WiFi, somewhere quiet and where I could sit down and put the device on a desk. The tablet is too heavy to hold still for more than a few minutes. As a result I had to use an office, with a desk, even with a "mobile" device

The tablet was fine for listening and reading text messages, but was difficult to use more actively. Typing a short text message was okay, but I could not easily flip to a web search and paste the results in. Switching to talk mode was surprisingly difficult. I put my virtual "hand" up to have a turn to talk, but found that I could never put it down. Clicking on the button to activate the microphone was difficult. What I found more useful was leave the soft microphone switch on and use the Push-to-Talk button on my headset.

At present a mobile device is a novelty for me. I might become more proficient, but to take notes during the webinar I got out my laptop and typed on its real keyboard and 11.6 inch screen. So the tablet provided little benefit over using a laptop (which is transportable, rather than mobile). A better option might be a smart phone, plus a large tablet or laptop. The smart phone would be used for the consuming information and the laptop for producing. This arrangement might also work well when the presenter in a webinar, as it can be useful to have a second device to see what the presentation looks like.