From frontline trooper to recently commissioned, junior officer and rapid promotion.
Getting to grips with the tools for two years I am at last inching towards supporting senior lecturers, heads of department and management on what online learning looks like and how to implement it.
The nuts and bolts of particular tools is my daily activity, but there is at least awareness that what I have here over the last 10 years has value for learning planning and design.
I am keeping a regular work journal. As I work in Learning Tech for an FE/HE College these are busy and educational times indeed!
I am online via Google Chat all day, with at least one, sometimes several Meets in a day. These include sessions with tutors/staff and students, typically on how to make the most of Google Meet or just digital literacy. I gave a team session on Screencastify last week and attend a weekly all staff session which has between 98 and 143 attending - so far.
Use of interactive platform ThingLink has become integral to our forthcoming online Open Day. There are now 360 degree images, many linked into 'tours' or with additional interactive elements, running for all five sites and a number of departments.
As the Digital Editor of an educational charity we have seen our followers double across social media, we use Facebook and Twitter. We have responded with seminars and quizzes by Zoom, more podcasts and videos and a monthly newsletter going out every week.
Local politics too has seen our first Full Town Council, alongside a weekly informal town council meeting - also on Zoom.
The swimming and sailing clubs are less active. Sailing on our inshore lake started again - but no rescue boats out. Swimming is down to land training and a lot of cycling.
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.
Its a great place to be in some respects. But I barely have time to reflect or learning anything new as I am so busy having to do, do, do. This is G Suite for Education and in Meets several times a day with colleagues on the Digital Team, with staff or with students.
And then two or three times a week I will find myself back online doing a Zoom meet or quiz with different friends and family. And even joined a Town Council Zoom meet.
In my fifth week working from home the immediate realization is that I could easily have been limiting my time ‘at work’ to once or twice a week. I get more done, my commute is into the spare bedroom and my home office set up is vastly superior to what I am provided with anywhere at college.
The greatest shift in behaviour is the amount of time spent in online meetings. Some of these lack the discipline that is required of a formal business meeting: an agenda and end time. Though a Zoom quiz with 17 family members spread between 3 corners of England ( South West, South East and North East), California and South Africa could have happily drifted on into the night - they weren’t going to bed in San Diego.
At least two ITC laggards in the family could finally figure out that they had a webcam and microphone. It strikes me as an excellent informal introduction to online learning that should be used with staff - break down the barriers and uncertainties by doing something that is collective, collaborative and fun.
It should be the mandatory icebreaker to do a quiz !
As I'm asthmatic I started remote or 'distributed' working a week before my colleagues - some of whom stayed at college to man the phones.
The transition to working online, and bringing as many teachers and students up to speed, has been both swift and largely smooth. GBMET has had dedicated 'learning technologists' in a Digital Team for several years. We have been pushing to bring staff, educators and students online for the last two years. The last 9 months has seen a breakthrough with internal workshops and conferences, greater integration with internal marketing and more one to one coaching.
The current pandemic has made it all the more urgent. If we think of it in terms of the stages of 'diffusion of innovations' then in the space of a few weeks we've broken free to take in the 'late adopters'; a few so called 'laggards' remain. Not a term I like. Too pejorative. 'Late developers' or 'Traditionalists' might be better.
How are you getting on?
We use Google Suite for Education.
I was thrilled when Thinglink announced yesterday that they were working closely with Google so that all Google assets can be directly embedded into Thinglinks or 'interactivities' - the term is evolving!! 'Thinglinks' are what we who use the platform call them. 'Interactivities' is the term coined by Jilly Salmon 12 years ago - it is less cumbersome that 'interactive activities'.
I started my first online degree here. It was one of the first of its kind, the Masters in Distance Learning from the Open University in 2001. A false start, with crude online resources, and my own career in tatters. I picked it up again in 2010. I completed my MA in Open and Distance Education in 2013. Started at that time this blog is fast approaching 5 million views.
I have since completed a further MA (albeit entirely face to face lecture and library based) and between FutureLearn, Coursera and OpenLearn a further 27 modules on one subject or another. I’m a mentor on Coursera’s ‘Learning How to Learn’. I recommend those that have tutor, mentor and student interaction. The human element, at least for me, is a vital component for completion. Not all worked, yet again I quit a course on French (a BA with the Open University). Speaking of which I totally recommend Lingvist as the go-to language learning App (I have tried and reviewed all of them). Also, perfect in a world of social distancing, Tandem, which fixes you up with someone like a dating App. (Not that I have any need for or experience of one of those).
Where student interaction is slight we’ve always started our online groups on LinkedIn. The group I set up 10 years ago for swimming teachers and coaches has 1,600 members and is still active. Most endure the length of the module.
Take a look at these online courses, join up with a buddy (you are more likely to complete). Most are free, though the best, and the business orientated ones may cost between £35 and £300. A degree module is now something like £2,000.
30 hours a week I am supporting colleagues and students at Greater Brighton MET. Google Suite for Education is our go to platform. Google Meets are frequent with Google Chat live while I’m at my desk. Last night friends did a 8 or 9 person quiz on Zoom. I promise to wake up my contributions to ‘scenario-based learning’.
I’m keen to get an art class going. I took a set of 360 degree photos in the lovely barn studio at Charleston a few months ago - with the model’s permission to post online. It was a life class so the nudity might result in the thing being barred. I may give this a go ... though any drawing from a flat surface my late mother, an art teacher, would have been against.
Finally, on reflection, exactly 45 years ago I broke my leg badly skiing. A 13 year old between schools I ended up at home for the entire summer term to prevent me from putting weight on my leg. I was sent a box of books with instructions to read them. Without any other efforts at support at all I didn’t do a thing. Instead I got out my Dad’s Readers Digest book on Gardening and spent the next few weeks pulling myself around the garden on a tea tray. By the end of it I was air-propagating specimen rhododendrons.
Take care. Stay in touch 🙂
Those of us with a background, academic interest in and experience with online learning now have an opportunity to bring everyone to the table. Working remotely for the last few days, and for the next few months I see a palpable change.
Google Meet and Zoom are the go to conferencing tools for College Staff and Students, and Town and District Councillors and staff. These, email and chat are now a stream of activity.
People also know that I am at home, not 'on my travels' so I get a lot of straight phone calls too.
Coming out of the woodwork, belatedly, are people who have felt too shy to ask before on how to do some things that many of us by now feel are commonplace. On the other hand, I have always been surprised when with others what odd get arounds we all have, not knowing there is a shortcut to do this, that or the other.
I am wondering sometimes how much BETTER a conference call is for a meeting. It can be recorded, screens can be shared, and you can make a point even when others are talking by adding a note in 'chat' - useful, because some people do like to dominate the space. Online you can temporarily mute them, certainly hide their face Try that in a meeting face to face.
I'm at it again. Having upgraded my phone I couldn't resist adding a gadget that will allow me to recreate some movie style effects - or to simply track something or someone with ease.
Based on the interior only, can you name that car? There are 10 of them. I can't name most of them front the exterior. I can get the marque if the badge is clear.
https://www.thinglink.com/video/1291412838811697153
Uses:
Double fisheye stills
Double fisheye video
Double fisheye live streaming
See the Ricoh Theta SC User Guide
With a protruding fisheye lens on both sides of the camera use the pouch to keep the camera in, and to lay it on when charging or uploading images to avoid scratching the lens.
Charging
Only charge through computer USB, not a wall socket.
A red light indicates that it is overheating. Unplug immediately.
Green light on for charge. Light goes out once charged.
A full charge takes 4 hours.
The camera can be operated on its own, though it works best when synched to a smartphone or tablet.
Synching
Synch with smartphone or tablet through wifi
The wifi reference for the camera indicates the password.
For example for camera: THETAJAY30121126.OSC
The password : 30121126 (the numbers only).
This also appears as YJ30121126 in tiny print on the camera itself.
More HERE > Connecting to a SmartPhone
Settings
Choose a network
Turn camera on
Wifi icon lit
Device finds wifi
Password
Wifi connect is meant to be 10m but is more like 5m and will be affected by walls.
Mounting
Hand held
Desk tripod
Tripod with short feet (and weights)
While some of the image immediately below the camera is hidden when the two 360 images are stitched together it helps to use a tripod with a small footprint.
I recommend the Koolehoad Monopod with has tripod legs.
If used outside and it is windy a couple of sandbags on the legs will keep it in place - or use a normal tripod and accept that the legs will show in the bottom of the image.
Camera Settings
The ‘Automatic’ setting rarely gives the best results. Shutter speed will adjust exposure for overly bright, or overly dim images. The White Balance also needs to be set - this ensures that ‘white is white’ whether under bright sunlight, or various kinds of artificial light.
Via device (smartphone or tablet)
Pull on the camera - you will see the image it is getting.
Along the bottom are the settings.
More HERE > on Theta SC Shooting Conditions
Automatic
ISO: (low light or too bright)
Shutter Speed: (low light or fast action)
White Balance: Sunlight vs artificial and all the variations through shadow, neon, lamps. A piece of white card and adjust in the camera.
Video
You can only shoot in auto mode when shooting video. Settings such as the ISO sensitivity, shutter speed, white balance and exposure cannot be configured.
Self-Timer
Unless you want to appear in the shot set the self-timer to 10 Seconds
When you hit ‘shoot’ you get a visual countdown on your phone/tablet and ni the last 4 second a ‘Bleeped’ countdown before the shot is taken.
Shutter Sound
Countdown ‘ping’ and shutter noise to help you get out of the shot.
Images
A double fish-eye lens is best in enclosed spaces and with the subject fairly close.
In the open sky can dominate.
If you want to feature people keep them close to the camera.
Keep a record of the pictures being taken
Best practice to draw a simple lay-out of the room and plot where each 360 image is taken.
Even a small room might benefit from the following shots:
By the entrance door.
Centre of the room.
Each corner
Close to major features.
It makes sense to have the camera at eye level - so 1m 70+ in the room, or at head height on a chair or by a desk.
Any number of further interesting shots with the camera placed on, in or close to things can be added.
For close-ups it is better to use a standard camera and add this image as a ‘hotspot’ link.
Transferring Images
Downloading images
The Ricoh Theta App can be used to view images in 360
These will transfer to the device
Also on the camera
An image is around 3.5-3.8MB.
Click through the Camera Icon Ricoh Theta to Fixed Storage to DCIM to 100RICOH
Then drag and drop into an appropriate folder.
Can ‘Delete all images’ if loading into an image App (but college computers generally do not permit saving to the desktop - images have to be saved to the network).
These images may look like peculiar, double fisheye or panoramic images until on a platform that supports viewing as a 360 image.
Images are backed up on your phone/tablet and can be uploaded from there if images on the Ricoh are lost or deleted.
USB to computer as for charging
Identify device
Select where images will be saved.
Catalogue
Select those to colour correct (if desired)
Adobe Lightroom to adjust:
Exposure
Contrast
Blacks
Whites
Clarity
Sharpness
At this point poor images that can’t be rescued can be deleted, or simply not added to ThingLink.
It also starts to become clear where there may be unnecessary overlap, so an image may not be required. Best to keep it offline.
This might also be the time to ‘redact’ someone who is appearing inadvertently - students would need to sign a release form for content shared online.
Export
The 360 images can be viewed on their own on Facebook or Google Photos and as video on YouTube. They can also be viewed through a 360 headset. An app for smartphones allows images to be broken into left and right eye.
ThingLink
We have been using the platform ThingLink which allows ‘tags’ or ‘hot spots’ to be added, as well as links made between a series of shots to create a VR Tour. This platform can also be used by students to annotate and tag images, whether 2D or 360.
You can try the platform for free for a month, longer by negotiation. It can take a while to bring others on board.
It makes life easier to upload in the approximate order in which the VR Tour will be built and if there are a lot of images to add them in small batches.
Numerous alternative platforms exist to create 3d Architectural spaces and models or tours. All will require a subscription at some point.
Get Organised
List: Camera Ref or renamed.
Best down in landscape
ThingLink URL
Once you have loaded your images onto ThingLink create a ‘Channel’ and post all your images to this.
The order in which they are added can facilitate the creation of a tour by keeping batches of images together, say for a room, and in the chronological order of a typical tour, or indeed the order in which the shots were taken.
Any icons can be used provided by ThingLink though we have a set of GB MET branded arrows/links.
Troubleshooting
Over a series of 20 shots, or use after 45 mins the link between the device (mobile or tablet) may be lost.
Turn the camera on and off - find the link and redo.
Loading images
Check the USB connection until your computer registers the device.
Shot Activation not working
Close the app and re-open until the 360 image appears and the button can be activated.
You keep appearing in the image!
The self-timer has to be reset if the App, phone or camera is turned off.
Updating Firmware
Intermittently the firmware on the camera will require an upgrade
ThingLink are great at improving their platform. Lately this has facilitated creating tours to the point that I describe creating a tour as 'electronic PostIt notes'. You can add voice over narration to the shot directly. You can post content to Google Classroom for lessons. You can download to work or view offline.
I've stitched together three tours which cover each of Electronics, Mechanical Engineering and Electronics labs.
Electronics 360° Interactive http://bit.ly/2uovM2U
Mechanical Engineering 360° Interactive http://bit.ly/2w1imKy
Bricklaying 360° Interactive http://bit.ly/2T9Q6xn
These can be used as they are, ideally if someone clicks around the space telling an audience what they are looking at. To use independently it is so easy to add this voice over. You just click on a scene and talk about it!
As you have seen much more can be added depending on the intended use:
‘Hot spots’ where a video clip, or explanatory text and an image are used.
‘Hot spots’ that click to a close up.
Addition of ‘Interactive Activities’ – as demonstrated here in Catering.
Catering http://bit.ly/2w3izwN
Any one of these ‘360 Tours’ can be ‘cloned’ i.e. copied in its entirety, renamed, and used for a different purpose, for example:
Health & Safety : we add further shots indicating a hazard and students must identify these and understand what to do
‘Teleport’ off site : 360 is wonderful for taking an audience somewhere out of bounds or inaccessible. With the right permissions I could get shots from a nuclear power plant, electricity sub-station, building site … you name it (In a former career I have produced training videos for all of these and many more!)
The first set of colour graded photographs looked far too yellow - as if I had been taking photographs in Spain. A poor computer display, which I ahave still failed to calibrate, exacerbates the problem. Being a whizz I got on and re-graded 16 photos in Adobe Lightroom, rebuild the 360 tour in Thinglink and only then started to add, experimentally, some 'hot spots'.
A stage that awaits a series of etivities, a narrative voice-over and a series of video clips too.
Electrical Workshop : https://www.thinglink.com/video/1286328259365044225
Do we have lift off?
I'm starting to see how a 360° tour of a catering teaching facility using some 16 360° images.
From diving in my lost post I am now elevating into flight mode. I'm something of a co-pilot on this one. I created the stage, as it were, while a colleague created the activities which I have started to embed within it.
Have a go > HERE Catering 23 + Etivities
Let me know how you got on.
For now I'm running with the term coined by Jilly Salmon for 'Interactive Activities' = 'etivities'. I'm not convinced it'll catch up.
Succinctly put by Marc Lewis of the School of Communication Arts, London.
You are either 'flying' : in which case, watch out world, your are taking it by storm!
Or 'gliding' : in which case, you are coasting along well inside your comfort zone, happily underachieving and not challenged.
Or you are 'diving' : you are heading towards the bottom. Nothing you do is right and you have no idea how to get out of this mess.
There's been research on this kind of thing for business school students.
I have been playing around with Thinglink for 18 months. I must have three or four accounts by now, that I run, or that I have set up for others ... and also run.
My latest is a group account so that students I will be working with can take images, add them and collaborate on creating 360 tours.
We are going to be creating a tour of an early years nursery.
Eons ago, perhaps 15 years ago, certainly 10, Jilly Salmon coined the term 'e-tivity'. It never caught on, though I feel compelled to use it rather than 'interactive activities'.
This is what we have here.
It is a set of 10 to 16 simply catering food safety and hygiene related execrises spread across a 360 tour of some 12 or more images around a teaching catering facility.
My First Goal is to add, number and annotate a set of these etivities to a 360 page.
My Second Goal is to spread the etivities strategically across the full 360 tour with Voice Over and text instructions.
My final goal is to add VO to edit video clips to provide 'how tos', hints and insights.
Activities design and built by Mia Pledger, 360 tour created by Jonathan Vernon.
90 minutes talking to 'Uniformed Services' and we came away with 6 or more projects, most major, some minor, to undertake over the next 18 months to support their tutors and students.
The easy part was to locate 6 episods of the court drama 'Murder in the Family' which is used to discuss court procedure and roles. This is now on Planet eStream where I can nip out the adverts and add some notes, even create a playlsist of all five episodes and create an interactive quiz at the end of each.
More complex and exciting will be working with students hoping to become drone pilots for the RAF and RN respectively. This could have me at sea - literally. Qualified to use a RIB they are short of volunteers to go out with the students.
And then 360 tours to create of a crime scene.
Video footage of gun and limber junior trials.
And surveillance work for conference centres and hotels.
CPR
Health, Fitness and Wellbeing to Armed Services entry standard ...
Quite a mix. Quite exciting.
Smiling is infectious
You catch it like the flu,
When someone smiled at me today,
I started smiling too.
I passed around the corner
And someone saw me grin.
When he smiled I realized
I’d passed it on to him.
I thought about that smile,
Then realized its worth.
A single smile, just like mine
Could travel round the earth.
So if you feel a smile begin,
Don’t leave it undetected.
Let’s start an epidemic quick
And get the world infected!
Ten years ago I started a student blog at the behest of the OU as part of the Masters in Open & Distance Education (MAODE). This was my second go at this having started nine years previously with the MAODL (Distance Learning).
I came from corporate training. Coming from teaching might have been more appropriate, and teaching in Higher Education in particular. I thought the outcome would be back into industry, whereas it has instead been a route into Education. It might have lead to research. I did prepare a PhD thesis and took this to Southampton.
Events closer to home have me reflecting on the power of story, no matter how or where it is expressed. We are highly tuned in to pay attention to a well told drama.
Our drama lately has been a broken arm (not me) and the unexpected knock on effects and lessons learnt in relation to the medical systems and approach in France and the UK, to being freelance or working fulltime, and a wake up call to what it takes to care for someone.
The story of this break and its consequences is shared with friends and over a few days it finds its own shape. You learn how to retain attention as one event and its consequences and all the subsequent decissions that are taken, and their consequences too. Let alone the other brickbats that get thrown your way to complicate it all further.
And the conclusion is?
Count your blessings
Smile and get on with it
Remember your friends and family as they remember you
Be prepared for this and worse happening
And in relation to learning?
Holding a students attention
Providing engagement which has a purposeful direction
Letting people draw their own conclusions
Listen to feedback and add this to the lessons being learnt
The vitality that comes from a story with emotional appeal, crisis, pain and laughter, consequences and outcomes.
We could do with a lot of these up all over our campus. I'm not convinced many people will understand what to 'expectorate promiscuously' means. It could be put more bluntly. 'Don't violently or frequently sneeze your snot and germs around and about'.
Or some such.
The science of sneezing courtesy of MIT
> The distance germs can travel
One powerful sneeze, unhindered, will fill a room.
> Allergies, sinus infections and sneezing ...
> Sneeze Reflex : Facts and Fiction
So frustrating if you create something for mobile devices only to find that in fact this functionality works best on a larger screen.
Are your computers ‘sanitized’ - given a clean - of any kind?
My concern for staff who hot desk (me) and students is that they will often sit down at a computer where someone has sneezed onto the keyboard and screen without any attempt whatsoever to shield their environment from the germs they are spreading.
I see this often. What about you?
The answer is to educate staff and students.
Add cleaning keyboards and screens to what the cleaning staff do.
Get rid of the multitude of ‘Press this Button’ pads that used used to enter the building , and libraries and corridors.
Students and staff touch these repeatedly across the day so no wonder germs spread fast and so many people end up off ill.
Without frequent handwashing it is hardly surprising that so many people end up ill
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