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.

Federal Capital University Proposed for Australia in 1910

At the Australian National University's Forum for early-and mid-career teachers and researchers yesterday, one of the speakers* mentioned that proposals for a Federal Capital University went back as far as the 1920s. This is supported by Davis (2013), but a quick web search showed it was actually in 1910 that the Minister responsible for what became Canberra, proposed a university:

Something of the nature of a university that "will lick creation" is promised by the Minister of Home Affairs (Mr. O Malley) at the Federal capital site. "We intend to have a real democratic university and an advanced university," said the Minister in reply to a question yesterday. "In my opinion the universities of Australia should be reconstructed on different lines. This university we are going to establish will be saturated with the same sympathetic spirit as is found in the advanced guard of Christian democracy today, it will cater principally for the people, not for the sons of boodlers."

    From "Federal Capital University", The Advertiser, page 13, 19 October 1910 (Trove Archive). https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/5278883/947375

Apart from the reference to "Christian" democracy, much of what the Minister foresaw is still relevant to ANU today. This includes an emphasis on an "advanced university", but one "for the people", not the children of the wealthy ("Boodler" was a derogatory term for a rich person).

* I can't say who said this at the forum, as we were operating under the Chatham House Rule.

Reference

Davis, Glyn. The Australian idea of a university [online]. Meanjin, Vol. 72, No. 3, Spring 2013: 32-48. Availability: <https://search.informit.com.au/documentSummary;dn=640753171641857;res=IELLCC> ISSN: 0025-6293.

Training the Big Data Trainer

Greetings from the Australian National University in Canberra, where I am attending "Powering up your 2018 (data skills) training". This is provided by Australian National Data Service (ANDS), National eResearch Collaboration Tools and Resources project (Nectar) and  Research Data Services (RDS). The idea is to help those who train researchers in using data repositories.

Data repositories are used not just by researchers, but also for teaching. The Atlas of Living Australia is also used by schools.

One of the problems with data repositories of data is motivating researchers to learn to use them and use them. The researcher tends to be focused on their PhD, or project and then getting the next grant. Making their data available for others to use may not be seen as helping with this (although researchers now get some credit for publishing data).

ps: The instructor perhaps was having a dig at me just now saying "You don't want people playing with computers and not paying attention", but obviously I am. ;-)