Real-time Online Team Formation with 200 Students

Gather Town

Greetings from the Australian National University team formation event, for TechLauncher computer student group projects. Some of the 45 clients are giving one minute pitches to 200 students via Zoom. After that the students can join a client to discuss their project in Gather Town, with support materials in Slack. The list of projects and clients is provided in a shared Google Spreadsheet. The clients include a baker, rocket scientist, doctor, fashionista, financier, insurer, power engineer, and many software entrepreneurs. This is a complex mix of tools and people, but so far it is all going okay.

Before COVID-19 closed the campus in 2020, a large flat floor classroom was used for team formation. The clients would stand around the walls, next to posters. The master of ceremonies would walk up to each client in turn and hand them a microphone. Then students would walk to the client they were interested in and stick a post-it note with their details to the poster. In 2020 this was moved online, first using Zoom and Slack. 

Remo Conference

To emulate the physical room, Remo Conference was used for some Techlauncher events. This time Gather Town is being used. Like Remo, Gather shows a two dimensional floor plan or map. Each participant is represented by an avatar. The topics are represented by tables. Participants move themselves to the topic they are interested in, then can talk to those at the table using video, audio and text chat. 

Gather has a chunky 1980s video game look. You navigate your character around using the keyboard like a video game. I prefer Remo's approach where the mouse can be used to move. For the team-building exercise participants were asked to color code their characters, like the crew on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. As teaching staff, I was yellow (the color reserved for aircraft directors).

With more than one hundred users, it was impressive the application worked. There were repeated "disconnected" messages, but then automatic re-connection. Video and audio worked fine, which is also impressive on my slow, high latency wireless broadband. 

While Gather seemed to work, I found the interface, with avatars continually moving in all directions very distracting. It took several attempts for me to be able to cope with Remo's chaotic layout, and it might be the same with Gather. However I suggest there should be the option of a simplified interface suitable for mobile devices and those on low bandwidth connections, similar to Slack, as an alternative. There may be scope for building these type of interfaces on top of Slack and similar text based systems.

Start-up Pitches by Smartphone

Automed Battery
Powered Medication Delivery

Greetings from First Wednesday Connect at the the Canberra Innovation Network (CBRIN). This was planned to be in the foyer of the ACT Government's new HQ, but has been moved online due to COVID-19. CBRIN kept the format the same: informal discussion, followed by 60 second pitches, but moved it online using the Remo platform. In the past I have had difficulties getting Remo to work on my old slow computer, but have found it works much better on my newer smartphone. One of the startups is Automed, with a livestock medication system. One of the participants commented that perhaps this could be used for COVID-19 vaccinations. It is not such a silly idea, to use a computerized powered injector which links to a database. That would not only allow injections to be given faster, it would reduce the time spent manually recording details. But a patient QR code might be used for identification, rather than an ear tag. ;-)

Shaping Ideas That Shape the Future

Expert Panel

Greetings from the ANU TechLauncher Student Showcase, at the Canberra Innovation Network. ANU Techlauncher students get to show off the computer systems they have built in teams for real clients through the semester. A panel of experts, from academia, and industry and discussing education and innovation. Most students are participating online via Remo. Tony Hosking mentioned that such projects get students out of their comfort zone. Petr Adamek, plugged First Wednesday Connect. In response to a student question online from China, the panel discussed learning from what happened unexpectedly in a project. As it happens I run the last assessment task for the course, where students learn to reflect on their experience.

Hacking the Virtual Hackerthon

Greeting from the Virtual Hackathon on Fighting Pandemics. This is organized by the Australian National University Humanitarian Innovation Society (ANU HISoc), with the Clinton Global Initiative University and IBM. We have had an introduction from the organizers at HISoc, and a design thinking workshop from IBM. I will be talking about better logistics at 2:15pm. The opening sessions used Remo Conference, and I am impressed that the organizers have been able to get it to work so well, but Remo needs improvements to be usable for education.

Remo Conference

Remo Conference

Remo Conference (Version: 2.13.5) takes the "conference" part of video conferencing more literally than other products, with an interface which looks like a conference room floor plan. Participants can be pre-allocated to tables, with a tiny picture of them, labeled with their initials, around the table as if seated. Spare space at the table is indicated by empty chairs. Those at a table can see and hear each other with the video windows appearing at the top of the screen. Participants can move tables by double clicking on another. Some tables may be reserved for MCs and a help desk. The MC can call all participants to a presentation, at which point the table conversations shut down and a large window opens for the presenter. When in presentation mode Remo Conference looks much like any other webinar product, with a presentation window, chat, Q&A and Raise-Hand functions.

The room metaphor is a good idea, but Remo's implementation takes it a bit too literally. One problem is that when the participants arrive there is no sound and no welcome. I spent a lot of time trying to work out why my audio was not working, but it was just that no one was talking: we were all waiting for something to happen. It would be useful if there was some sort of avatar to show us to our seats and some sort of background hum of the crowd. 

Also the fixed room layout does not make best use of screen space. When at a table, having all other tables displayed is a waste of space. It would be better if the interface zoomed in. There is a text chat window, but I could not find a way to resize it, so it obscured things I wanted to see. However, the largest problem is the video does not work well on a slower link.

This is my fourth attempt to use Remo. The first two times I did not manage to see or hear anything. The third time it worked, sort of. This forth time it is usable, but only just. The problem is that like many video conferencing tools, Remo have assumed the user has high speed broadband. As a result on my low speed connection Remo barely works, at the best of times. This is unfortunate, as Zoom have shown this does not need to be the case: Zoom adjusts well for a lower speed link. In Zoom, if I make the window smaller the resolution of video reduces and with that the data transmitted. This doesn't happen with Remo. Even if I minimize the window, so no video is visible, Remo still uses more than 1 Mbps, whereas Zoom uses much less.

The video data use in Remo seems to vary depending on the resolution the video participant is transmitting. During this week's CBRIN First Wednesday, everything was working okay with Remo, until the MC appeared. At that point I saw a blurry closeup of their face frozen on screen. Then a pre-recored YouTube video started and worked fine, but before then end this was interrupted by the MC again as a huge still image. What appears to have been happening was that the MC was in HD video which my system could not cope with. The YouTube was low resolution and worked fine, but was interrupted by the HD again before it could finish playing.

All this discussion of low resolution may sound irrelevant to those with high speed broadband: why not just spend a few dollars and get decent broadband? I could do that as I am relatively well of, and live in a first-world city which pioneered fiber to the node decades ago. But many people can't afford, or can't get, high speed broadband. 

For-profit companies can simply ignore customers without high speed broadband, reasoning these people don't have enough money to be worth worrying about. As an educator, it would be unethical, and perhaps unlawful, to discriminate against students in this way. So when COVID-19 hit I decided to forgo the high speed broadband I had access to and instead make do with a high latency low speed 4G mobile broadband connection My connection works at around 1.5 Mbps, which is is part of the ANU Recommended student system requirements.

If a service doesn't work on low speed broadband, then some of my students, who are now scattered around the world, may not be able to use it. Although Remo recommends a minimum of 8 Mbps, it just about works at 1.5 Mbps. I suggest the developers implement video bandwidth adjustments, like those in Zoom, to make it usable for those who can't afford, or can't get, high speed broadband.