Blended Learning Challenge for the ACS Flatten the Curve Hackathon

The Australian Computer Society is running a Flatten the Curve hackathon, to develop prototypes in 48 hours to counter the  COVID-19 Coronavirus. Registration closes 3:30 pm 9 April, and the event starts at 9pm. The challenge I have submitted is Blended Learning for a gradual return to campus, and so if there is a further outbreak of disease online learning can be quickly implemented. This will require tools, teacher training, and changes to government policy.

Plan a Gradual Return to the Classroom with Blended Learning

Most educational institutions had to scramble to convert courses for online delivery due to the  COVID-19 Coronavirus. Those educational institutions which were already providing large scale e-learning, and those who took my advice in 2017 to be ready with online learning in case of a crisis, have had less difficulty. A more orderly move back to the classroom can be planned, when the virus is under control in the next few months. This could use blended learning, with on-campus components gradually added to the blend. However, the online components should be retained for all programs, in case of future emergencies, and to cater for individual student needs.

It is not feasible to set a deadline when all classes return to "normal" campus-based teaching. Rather than having all students stop online learning at once and return to campus on the same day, stagger it over weeks, or months. Students would be on campus initially for only a few classes. Some students will be unable to return for medical and other reasons. 
 
With a gradual return there would be fewer students on campus, allowing for easier social distancing. Further COVID-19 outbreaks are possible, until a vaccine is widely administered. If there is a further outbreak, the decision to move back to online learning would be much easier. There would be no difficult decision to declare a campus "closed". Instead the on-campus options would be swapped out and the online equivalents used, for as long as is required. This could be done just for a particular group of students who may have had contact with a person found to be infected, rather than closing the whole campus.

Australian institutions should include online learning, as part of permanent contingency planning, as was done by some institutions in our region years before the current emergency.

Blended learning will also better suit student needs and the reality of how they now study. The idea that most university students were "full time" and  "on-campus" was a fiction. Even before COVID-16, most students did not attend most lectures, in the typical Australian university program. Many students have families, or jobs, or both, competing for their time, making them effectively part-time students, studying mostly online. The opportunity can be taken to redesign programs, to provide blended learning. 

The distinction between on-campus and online students can be removed, along with full and part-time, domestic and international. The typical student will likely study 20% on campus and 80% online. But students should be allowed to choose the blend which suits them. Courses and programs can be flipped, with a design for online delivery, plus some campus-based elements added were appropriate. If Australian universities do not offer these options, domestic and international students seeking them will be required to enroll at overseas institutions.

Professor Marginson of Oxford University, has suggested treating online learning as a different product with a "separate pricing structure” (Coronavirus: global student flows to suffer ‘massive hit’ for years, Ellie Bothwell, Times Higher Education, 26 March 2020). However, offering cut-price online degrees could risk the reputations of institutions, and countries, for quality education. Blended learning, could incorporate some online learning, but be seen to be a quality product worthy of the full fee.

Australian higher education policy should be changed to accept blended learning as the default, for both domestic and international students. Australia should focus on quality education for all students, wherever they are. This will reduce the burden from unworkable regulations, which have been waved during the current emergency. It will also provide a competitive advantage for Australia in a more competitive international education market.

Better e-Learning Tools for Combating COVID-19 via Zoom

Just gave my first presentation via Zoom video conference this afternoon. This was on "Better e-Learning Tools for Combating COVID-19" to early career academics at the Australian National University (ANU). These webinars are being held every two weeks, to help deal with isolation.

Zoom worked much like the other video conference tools I have used to present. The audio worked well, as did the video, but screen sharing had some glitches (very much like other conference tools).

While Zoom offers to share a window on my screen, I could not get this to work with the Linux operating system and Firefox web browser. As soon as I started sharing a window, it went black on my screen and for everyone else. Sharing my whole screen worked, but then I could not see the chat window or video from other people. This was a little like presenting to a dark room full of people (which I have done in Indonesia, during a blackout). The window sharing may be better supported on other operating systems and browsers.

Zen Martial Arts Maxims for Online Teaching

To those working hard to move courses online, due to the  COVID-19 Coronavirus, remember there is no need to replace every lecture with a video, every tutorial with a webinar, or every paper examination with an online test. I recommend the Zen martial arts maxims: Economy of effort, Realism, and Switching smoothly between techniques.

In 2014, as a student of online teaching I was required to write a personal Theory of Practice. I decided to apply Zen martial arts maxims:

1. Economy of effort

Meditation, by Jens Tärning
from the Noun Project,
CC-BY 3.0, 2014

Martial arts emphasize maximum results from minimum effort. Similarly, learning is a means to an end and so should be done efficiently: using just enough resources to get the job done. However, most theories of education ignore the cost of an activity. There tends to be an inappropriate emphasis on trying in education, rather than succeeding.

2. Realism

Education needs to provide the student with useful skills. Students will need to start with simplified exercises, but need to be exposed to increasingly realistic problems. My students either have jobs or are training for a specific role as a professional, their studies are therefore focused on obtaining skills for that job. By providing student exercises which are based on their own workplace, or a reasonable simulation of the workplace, the students are motivated and learn useful skills.

3. Switching smoothly between techniques

Educational literature is full of explanations of why one principle, theory or technique is superior to another. But one approach will rarely do for all situations. Educators need to move smoothly from one technique to another. Students will need times when they learn alone and then others in a group. They can learn the basics using a simple drill and practice computer program (based on behaviorism theory) and then explore advanced topics with other students.

From the chapter "Theory of Practice", of the book Digital Teaching In Higher Education by Tom Worthington, 2017.

The Zen maxims are from Bruce Lee's Tao Of Jeet Kune Do
(Lee, 1975).

Free open source alternatives to Zoom for Videoconferences

I spent much of the week in Zoom based video conferences, only one of which did not work. This is remarkable, given how heavily Zoom is being used due to the COVID-19 Coronavirus. In contrast, I had considerable difficulty with Blackboard Collaborate. Collaborate seems to be less able to cope with my 1 mbps broadband connection than when I used it at 28.8 kbps dial-up speed in 2011. 

There are also some open source video conference products. Hamza Mu has detailed 15 of them in "Top 15 Open source Video conference and Team Communication Solutions for Windows, Linux, Mac OSX and Phones (Medevel.com, 30 Mar 2019). The only one of these open source products I have used is BigBlueButton, which is commonly teamed with the Moodle learning management system. However, Apache OpenMeetings looks interesting.

However, these video conference tools have not changed much, from the user's point of video, for decades. The quality of the video has improved, but that is about all, and that is about the least important aspect of a video conference. These events should really be called audio conferences with a shared screen and optional video.

Tuning Zoom Videoconferencing

Today was my third video conference for the week, Reading the Corona: extraordinary responses during an extraordinary time, hosted by the ANU Indonesia Project. Chatib Basri and Rizki Siregar discussed policy options for dealing with the the COVID-19 Coronavirus in Indonesia.
With 300 participant, this Zoom video conference had many more than those yesterday, but worked much better. This is a good way to keep in touch, but I am worried about the amount of bandwidth which might be used. So I tried shaping (limiting) my network connection.

Shape Your Video Conference

I am using 4g wireless broadband, with two out of five bars of signal strength, running at 2.63 Mbps download, 1.54 Mbps upload and a ping speed of 34 ms from Canberra to Sydney (at other times it has been 9.1 Mbps download, 12.8 Mbps upload and pink speed of 29 ms). That is modest by current standards, but adequate for attending, and presenting at a Zoom video conference.

I stared shaping with 150 kbps, which is Zoom's recommended minimum, for screen sharing plus a thumbnail video. But Zoom reported an unstable link and it was unusable. Increasing to 512 kbps worked well. The video was then at 256 x 144 pixels and 5 frames per second (sometimes 320 x 180 at 12 frames per second). Shared screens were very clear at 1440 pixels wide, with a small, but clear, video window next to them.

Yesterday I was using video conferencing via the Australian National University's very high speed network. I discovered I could reduce the data requirements for Zoom by keeping the video window small. Today I am using a much slower cellular modem wireless connection. But with the bandwidth shaped, and resulting lower resolution video, the experience is much better than on the higher bandwidth connection.

I used the Linux tool Wondershaper to slow down my network connection, but there are similar tools for other operating systems (and using routers). Wondershaper is not ideal, as it slows down everything, not just Zoom (other tools can select just one application to shape). Of course it would be better to tell Zoom to use less bandwidth, but I have not been able to find a way to do that.

Flip your Video Event

Keep in mind that glitches happen with video conferences. Yesterday I had four scheduled Zoom meetings. The first two worked flawlessly. The third had some glitches, and the last did not work at all.

I suggest 'flipping' the format for online events. That is, provide the presentation slides and, if possible, a short recorded video by each speaker beforehand. That way, if there are intermittent problems, the presenters can skip the full presentation and go straight to questions. Also I suggest reducing the length of events, and break them up into segments of no more than ten minutes. For example, instead of an hour long seminar, make it 15 minutes, including 5 minutes for questions.

Organizers need to be ready to switch off the video, leaving just slides and audio, if there are bandwidth problems. Also the organizers should have copies of slides and be ready to manually change them, if the presenter has difficulty doing that at their location. They should be ready to just talk, with no slides, as I have told ANU TechLauncher students. 

Use Video Conferences to Keep in Touch But Conserve Bandwidth

Greetings from the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra, where I just took part in the inaugural Virtual Morning Tea (VMT), for early career academics. These will be held weekly by the  ANU Network for Early Career Academics (NECTAR). There will also be more formal regular online seminars, but the VMT is an informal drop-in sessions to avoid social isolation. While this is a good use of technology, it is also a good idea to conserve the use of the public data networks, as there is likely to be high use of the coming months. So here are some tips. The video conferencing product being used was Zoom, but other products are likely to behave similarly.

It is possible to reduce data use, simply by using a small video window. With video full screen, I have found that Zoom uses about 1,000 kbps. If I reduced the size of the video window to around 512 by 240 pixels, the data reduced to 300 kbps. Minimizing the video to a "thumbnail" (200 by 112 pixels) reduced data to 220 kbps. Hiding the video reduced data to 120 kbps. This is consistent with Zoom's documentation: 1.2 Mbps for HD video, screen sharing with  video thumbnail at 50-150kbps, and screen sharing only with no video thumbnail 50-75kbps.

During a formal presentation, video is really only needed at the start to introduction the speaker, and at the end during questions, if at all. In between there are usually slides to look at, so the video can be minimized, or hidden. I suggest participant adopt that way of viewing, and if possible, event organizers set this up as the default.

There are other ways you can improve video meetings, especially with careful preparation. The aim is to have the live video meeting as just one element, ideally a non-essential one. Much can be done with text based communications, which are less demanding of networks, to keep people in touch.

Zoom, and other video products, adjust to the bandwidth available, but then tries to use all that bandwidth. This makes them poor online citizens, like someone who fills their trolley with toilet paper, if you let them.

As there is likely to be a high demand for Internet access over the next few months, I suggest that providers of video conference products set defaults to use less bandwidth. At the very least they could be set so only a small video window appears by default. Also they could provide a low speed option which uses no more than 256 kbps, and this could be made the default setting. As an example, Zoom has a maximum bandwidth setting, but this is disabled by default. This should be enabled and set to no more than 256 kbps.