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A day is a long time in e-learning!

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Friday, 11 Dec 2020, 13:31


I tried to run with too much and came unstuck. A 90 minute class is long. The two 3 minutes breaks don't give them a break ... but longer we have found and they can go off and not return.

Clicking through a set of tabs prepared to show/share worked well enough, though with adjustments made each time I have taken this class (five times this week) risked my opening the wrong tab, or being unsure of the revised tab. Then wanting to use all of: Polls, Breakout Rooms and Breakout Rooms with Jamboard was a push too far.

Multiple Jam Boards open simultaneously

I set up no fewer than five Breakout Rooms and labelled each: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and Jupiter. Fine, but when we went to the rooms they had only been given Viewer status and were not able to alert me to this until they returned to the 'main room'.

I tried again later once I had changed the permissions but this time did the room settings double or change again? One person was on their own in Jupiter. So had Meet shuffled the students. And it took them time to get started. In the end it looked as if only one of them or a couple of them in 'Mars' did anything at all.

Battlefield Virtual Tour demonstration one tab opened of many in the window

However, I did keep to the two breaks. I didn't play two longer video clips and found I had time in hand, so could watch all of the demonstration of the Battlefield Virtual Tour.

I learnt that in the group most were on laptops, one on a desktop and two on phones.

Whether I get any takers from Screencastify is another matter. 

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Now what? Not another badge!

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Sceencast Video Creator of the Year

I'm a sucker for praise and recognition; aren't we all? Maybe being this cheesy is a step too far in tacky commercialism though? Or not? I can't tell and don't know but the trap has been laid I I took the bate. As I've been giving workshops to staff, and now to students on using Screencastify I have clocked up many a screencast. 

I will knock one out as quickly as a sneeze - almost.

Needing to show someone how to get video from their phone to their Google Drive I used Screencastify to record 'webcam' only, practiced getting the image visible by holding my phone at the right angle and close enough to the webcam and then talked her through the process. Later that day I learnt, with delight, that both she and a student had now started to get their video content where it needed to be in order to share to the class via Goolge Classrom. Job done.

I also demo Screencastify live in the remote classes I am running this week; this makes for at least one further screencast a day - more when I get it wrong and record Webcam or Browser when I mean Desktop.

Onwards. The days is new. It's 5:00am and I feel rested and ready for the world. 

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Time out to reflect

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Edited by Jonathan Vernon, Wednesday, 9 Dec 2020, 21:21

Kolb's Reflective Cycle

By Izhaki - In OmniGraffle, CC BY 3.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=40793898 

I am three formal 90 minute online classes in with two more to go. It is the same topic, but a different group of students each time. I made a slight overhaul in the hour before today's session.

I am yet to watch back any of the Meet recordings.  

The following passed through the entire cycle: 

I had a clip of Oxford Uni academic taking us through hsi ideas of 'Visitors and Residents' online. Rather than him, I ran through it myself to the webcam with a whiteboard. Old school, but I hoped would give me a chance of explaining it in my words. Is it relevant that students are this self-aware?

JV on camera using a mini white board to talk about the idea of 'Visitors and Residents' online

A haircut is due and there is reason why older people wear shirts with a collar or a roll top smile

Ditto 'Netiquette' as an icebreaker, something they should all have been drilled on and understand, yet the feedback in the Chat from 22 students was low - four at most caring to give me a sentence. Many more would respond to a closed question with 'Y' or 'N'. I tried Q&A the other day and had no questions at all. I rather thinking typing is an issue - noit least if they are on a phone, but because they are certainly not able to touchtype - only touch thumb.

I guess therefore I am going through this process. I know what can be fixed swiftly and do so. Indeed, while a video was playing, by way of demonstration I made some of the slides 'accessible' simply by increasing the font size, putting in a pastel shade background and right justifying the text.

The element where we looked for words to describe enhancements or augmentation to reinvention was dropped. I had begun with a Business School diagram introducing SMAR (which I have not used at all). I then struggled to find the words myself so certinaly couldn't provide a simple, clear activity for them to do for three minutes. Instead I quickly created the following and then moved on to the 'Lessons for today'.

Steps to enhance a slide presentation: accessible, add audio and video, make it a screencast, go interactive.

I also dropped flicking through some pages from DK online showing the historic development of the gun from flintlock to plastic submachine gun. Interesting in its own right, but not the right comparison for the above stages. 

JV presenting in MEET and introducing Ten Tips on slides for TED lectures

The Gun > https://pubhtml5.com/cqlx/ftcx 

Ten tips on out to use slides by David Epstein of TED lectures

I brought in a TED lecture from from David Epstein on how athletes have improved over the last 85 years. Interesting in its own right, but was to show the interplay between a presenter and their slides > https://bit.ly/3m2iNc1

Five ways to simple video for the classActivity Three I want to replace with my own video so from the outset the message is for students rather than me saying that they should hear 'student' every time the presenter says 'Teacher'. Also to diminish the negativity on some slide presentation types than might be overly reliant on the slides and the handouts rather than students taking notes. Taking notes is a totally foreign concept, not even students who may benefit from recording audio or video so they have something to play back. I nabbed this LINK > https://youtu.be/GuA8fPCHu9c from Open Learn's Take Your Teaching Online'. 

I should test my theory of 'learning at the speed of desire' > motivation is all. If they are motivated they could Google my intentions and get their own top tips on presenting, using slides, video and screencast technology.

Last session like today having gone through all the buttons on the Screencastify minidashboard dropdown I once again inadvertently hit the Webcame record.

Screejcastify dropdown dashboard

Let's hope I don't do this for the next two sessions. I'll put a note to self in the slides.

My feelings? Good. The first session felt like a dress rehearsal, the second like a technical rehearsal. It can only improve. Getting engagement and evidence of learning from the students is another matter entirely.

Soon after viewing the above I headed into town for a haircut. 


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Can you post too often?

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Screenshot of using Screencastify Editor to merge two videos

Being digital I'd say not. 

I do two things regularly as an aide-memoire.

I keep a 'day diary' > once a closed blog, now simply a Google Doc broken into days of the week. I just bullet point and add the odd screenshot or link.

I am hit all week (my choice) by emails, or posts in Social Media . Of late these just get grabbed and weekly or even monthly added to a folder in Google Photos. It is surprising what I can find in there, but it works. I have the 2/4 PGCE classes I have attended as notes, some VoiceMemos, photos and screenshots. I will have to 'get these ducks in a line' sooner rather than later. Historically a process that foreshadows a TMA. I should try and do this ahead of each weekly face to face class so I am ready for any questions about what we have already done. I also need to be more knowledgeable of the two weeks I missed.

My immediate reflection is on the nature of the ever changing world of digital tools and platforms. Blink and they have upgraded, been bought by one of the big players (Microsoft or Google). Cynically I expect everyone of these to be able to do everything in due course. Google Meet will be like Sceencastify and no different to YouTube with plugins ... 

I've just done a simple edit of two Screencastify videos in the Screencastify Video Editor.

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Google Certified

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There was quite a bit about badges during my MAODE back in 2010-13. Have they taken off? No trivial achievement but these are being given out for Google Educator and many others. I have picked up certification for Thinglink and will be able to add further badges from Screencastify and Planet eStream. They have more meaning and have been better tested than almost all the MOOCs I have done with FutureLearn and Coursera. 

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Ask me :

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Screencastify

Planet eStream

Google Classroom 

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John Sowash

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I did a day with John Sowash who was live from his home in Brighton, Michigan. By chance, as the conferences he usually runs are done around the US. Because of lockdown he put it online.

It has taken me a week before I could take some time out to go through my notes. There is so much to pick up on, every day practicalities of using Google Suite for Education with short cuts and cool tips. 

It may be aimed at primary and secondary school students, but there is no reason not to have fun with FE and HE students and colleagues too. 

As well as mastering Google Classroom I need to make more use of things like Peardeck, Screencastify and Jamboard. 

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