CLIPP Board

Flipping Vital

In most examples at Aston,  Replay (Panopto) lecturecasts are made available to students immediately following the formal lecture. But “flipping” could provide another equally popular model?

What is flip teaching?
This refers to a method of instruction where classroom-based teaching time and traditional “homework” time are reversed (flipped). A teacher provides video lessons to be reviewed outside of class, which in turn gives teachers more time in class to focus on higher-order learning skills. Ref: http://ed.ted.com/about

I recently attended a webinar organised by the ViTAL SiG.  This caught my eye as it covered a new ideology called Flipping the classroom. The webinar by Carl Gombrich outlines his approach to successful flipping. Carl, records lectures, then encourages students to ask three questions about them (in the VLE) – and add a timestamp video reference.
Essentially this “movement” entails the use of short video “lectures” either using tools such as Panotpo, or shorter chunks of videos posted on YouTube, or hosted on sites like the popular Kahn Academy. Essentially the idea is to make traditional lecture material available to students BEFORE a lecture, in a more informal/accessible/varied format.

By supplementing the [chunked] video material with tasks/questions in a VLE or by using the new TED ed tool box – you extend the learning, and move towards a more inquiry based model. The students then arrive at the traditional lecture primed full of ideas they want to discuss – as per a standard tutorial format. We used to call this homework! The same outcome of promoting learner autonomy, inquiry, and problem solving, can be also achieved by posting any resources for students to work on before lectures into Blackboard or Pebblepad. The aim is to promote a more discursive, Q&A lecture format. The use of chunked video clips or lecturecasts in this new “flipping” ideology ensures that core course resources could be presented in a more engaging format (as opposed to text) and could therefore improve motivation?

Further information;

• http://www.ucl.ac.uk/teaching-learning/news/carl-gombrich-flipping-the-lecture-theatre
• http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2012/04/flipping-the-classroom/
• http://remoteworker.wordpress.com/2012/05/01/flipping-lectures/
• http://www.khanacademy.org/
• http://ed.ted.com/about
• http://www.youtube.com/user/TEDEducation 
• http://tlc.aston.ac.uk/aston-replay/case-study-lecture-capture-aston-university
• MIT & Harvard release Edx

TED’s new addition

I’ve long been a fan of the diverse range of informative and inspiring TED Talks. Today they’ve announced a new member of their family – TED Ed – which will be officially lanching as a YouTube channel in April. The idea is simple – teachers across the educational spectrum can team up with professional animators to share their resources in a short video not exceeding 10 minutes.  As always with TED, the video says it all…

Media and Learning Technologies’ Portfolio

You can now browse all the significant teaching and promotional projects which Media and Learning Technologies (CLIPP’s media service) has produced in the past three years on our Portfolio pages on the Aston University website. There’s a brief summary of each project and what we ended up delivering, as well as links to the video content itself (where possible).

I’m really pleased that we now have this resource as a testimony to what we can achieve, but it’s really just a small part of what we do. With every new project, we’re adapting and developing our skills and knowledge further, to ensure that we continually improve  the creation of high-quality learning and promotional materials which effectively reach their target audiences. Please check the Portfolio pages regularly in the future as I will be adding not only the latest completed projects as we deliver them but also some of the classic work we did between 2004 and 2008, and hopefully even earlier.

Should you need any more information – or have any comments – about any of the projects on the Portfolio pages, then please don’t hesitate to contact me on 0121 204 4232 or at n.w.birch@aston.ac.uk.

Super Hero Origins – The Diary of a Production

The need for a ‘My Aston Portal’ video was first put to me during my PDR by my then line manager Kevin Brace at the end of July 2010. At that stage a brief for the production of the animation had not been developed and as I had no personal experience with MAP it was clear that several developmental meetings would be needed before we could get the ball rolling.

The first port of call would be Addam Hepburn, Systems Implementor with ISA who, due to his work on MAP, was more than happy to help out. Because of the Summer annual leave diary and other ongoing projects, it would not be until the beginning of October that Addam Hepburn, Kevin Brace and myself would be able to get together to thrash out some ideas.

What may have been the logical approach for many, the tutorial/how to/walk through video, we were able to dismiss almost immediately. Addam raised concerns that as MAP is constantly developed, new features would not be reflected in such a video therefore restricting its shelf life. Also I felt that this kind of video would be too long if it were to cover all aspects of MAP and would not be sufficiently dynamic for the audience at which it is aimed.

Of the several other ideas discussed the one that seemed to have most promise was the idea of a comic book which would feature students around campus discussing the merits of MAP. The virtues of this approach would mean it would be colourful and therefore eye catching and the narrative would have to be broken down into clear and concise chunks. We would also be able to develop a multi format approach by using the comic book pages as posters to promote MAP. Kevin also suggested the use of a QR Code on the posters to drive students to the animation and the MAP pages via mobile devices. This approach would negate the use of filming and sound recording and therefore be minimal on equipment and personnel resources.

Satisfied that we now had a style to aim for, our attentions turned to the content. Addam and Kevin felt that the key to getting students to use MAP was not just the everyday services it offers such as finance and time tabling but by focusing on how it can make them more attractive to employers through management of placements and use of the e-portfolio. Developing this thinking, Kevin came up with a tagline, “Enhancing Graduate Attributes”, around which the content would be based.

A second meeting between me, Kevin and Maureen Tibby, Head of the Careers and Employability Centre, was arranged for the end of October in order to run the “Enhancing Graduate Attributes” idea past Maureen and also ensure that we were adhering to Aston’s remit/strategy. Maureen’s suggestions and the meeting as a whole proved encouraging and satisfied that we were heading in the right direction I could finally begin work on preliminary visuals, a proof of concept for the animation and a brief for the project in order for a script to be developed by Nick Birch.

The essence of the brief was a requirement for a script that featured two protagonists involved in a conversation about the virtues of MAP (with a focus on ‘Enhancing Graduate Attributes’) presented in the form of a frame by frame comic book. As mentioned earlier the protagonists were to be students featured in various campus locations and the perceived (but unstated) tone was to be straight forward and informative. However, the first draft script that Nick returned at the end of November was quite unexpected. Not only was it humorous but also had the protagonists referencing the fact that they were part of an advertisement and breaking the ‘fourth wall’.

Initially, although the script was very good, I felt that this was not what was needed because the mock ad-sales element of it didn’t fit with the tone we were trying to set. Then it occurred to me, that with a slight re-write of the script, one of the protagonists could be turned into a super-hero which would reinforce the comic book motif. Everything had fallen into place.

The final script, storyboard and test animations were completed just in time for the Christmas break with plans in the New Year for the ‘design’ of a super hero costume, identifying people to play the parts and blue screen photography prior to assembling a first draft of the animation. However plans had to be put on hold as a couple of projects, including the Paramedics Training Videos for the NHS, would take priority for a couple of months. However, during this time we were able to present the work done so far to Maureen Tibby, Angela Davies and Lehanne Anderson of the Careers & Employability Centre and their favourable comments proved very encouraging.

Work on the animation finally reconvened at the start of May 2011. In order to plan out exactly what images of our actors would be needed for the final animation I created a version with self shot photographs of myself against a blue screen, playing the part of ‘Captain Aston’ (although not in costume) and his opposite number. To all intents and purposes, this was the final animation and would only require the replacement of the images of me with the final images of the actors.

A call went out to marketing and the entire South Wing fourth floor corridor for volunteers to play the parts of Captain Aston and his cohort and it was CLIPPs very own Paul Gorman and Zara Kendrick who answered that call. A couple of hours shopping and a bit of nifty work with a sharp knife and a bit of glue and Captain Aston was finally ready to don his cape and mask.

After a short photo shoot against the blue screen to get the required images of Paul and Zara, final compositing of the My Aston Portal animation could begin and the completed animation was delivered at the beginning of June 2011.

Comments have so far been positive. Angela Davies wrote “It’s great to see it all come together from your initial pencil drawings. I think it unambiguously emphasises MAP’s functions.  Glad you decided to go with the direct approach.  The poster is vague enough to want to find out more, but the comic strip is very clear, and funny; I think it will appeal to students.”

Nick Birch added “I’m really pleased with what we have achieved in making the MAP animation. Often, it’s the simplest messages that take the most effort to communicate effectively and Steve’s worked so hard on bringing this complex, yet straightforward message to the screen. I think it’s another fine example of the high quality and visual impact we can achieve in Media & Learning Technologies.”

Angela also suggested that Captain Aston could be put to further publicity use in the future, a sentiment also echoed by Steve Thompson. So there could be a sequel yet!

Many thanks to Kevin Brace, Nick Birch, Paul Gorman and Zara Kendrick for their involvement in this project. If you have any questions regarding this production feel free to enter them into the comments and I’ll try my best to answer them.

Steve McHale
Video Graphics & DVD Production
Centre for Learning Innovation & Professional Practice

Captain Aston Vs MAP

This stylish video has been produced to highlight the potential of My Aston Portal (MAP) to all Aston students. MAP hosts a range of tools to support learning and personal development.

The video was crafted by our own Steve McHale from the Aston MLT department, part of The Centre for Learning Innovation and Professional Practice (CLIPP). Credit and thanks also go to CLIPP staff; Paul Gorman (The Captain), and the Zara Kendrick (Sidekick).

We are the Learning Development Centre

This week sees our latest video – a promo for the Learning Development Centre at Aston University – go live, for all students (new and returning) to watch. Our brief was to make a video that explained what was on offer at the LDC and how students could benefit from using it. We wanted to steer clear of the traditional and sometimes impersonal ‘talking heads’ approach, so we hit upon the idea of showing the staff as friendly and approachable, using signs to give some factual information and then filming in the LDC, using text projected onto surfaces for the user comments.

Featuring excellent camerawork and editing from Colin Roach, and full participation and winning smiles from the LDC team, it’s turned out even better than we’d hoped and has impressed everyone who’s seen it so far. It’s even been shown as an example of the work of CLIPP at the Aston Advance, the gathering of the University’s senior executives.

I’m delighted that we were able to try out this new style of video, and that the end result is so strong and distinctive.

Diverse Conference June 2011

The 11th DIVERSE (Developing Innovative Visual Educational Resources for Students Everywhere) Conference, held at the Dublin City University Campus, Eire, is intended as a showcase for excellence and innovation in the field of video and videoconferencing in education: teaching, research, management and so on.

This year saw presentations around the themes of Digital Video Projects, Visual Literacy in New Media, E-health, and Social Media and saw contributions from academics, learning technologists and other interested parties from Europe, Africa, North America and Australasia.

It was to be a special conference for me because I was presenting a poster for the first time – more of that later. After being serenaded by a close harmony quartet (surely every conference starts like this, doesn’t it?) we kicked off with Professor Roy Pea of Stanford University introducing the revolutionary DIVER camera. This was an eye-opening and exciting piece of kit that had evolved out a dual need to capture panoramic video of a single event, and to be able to select areas of that video for re-editing. The camera uses a simple but high-quality panoramic lens and has advanced software that ‘undistorts’ the resulting image into a full panoramic video recording. Sections of the captured video can then be highlighted as separate ‘Dives’, which can be annotated too. The cameras are being successfully used in all manner of teaching environments, not least teacher training, and I’d certainly like to investigate their use here in the near future. There’s even an iPhone lens attachment that allows panoramic recording straight onto your phone!

While some of the sessions may not have trodden the new ground that they could have done, there were plenty of interesting presentations to be had. Mike O’Donoghue from the University of Manchester gave a very pertinent talk on creatively designing video for teaching and learning which was very interesting to practitioners like me and a wider teaching and learning technologist audience alike, referencing his 20 or so years experience in this field. He has some very interesting guidelines and educational videos which have been formulated for the MA in Digital Technologies, Communication and Education at Manchester.

Over in the e-Health arena, there was a good presentation by Aoife Ni Mhuiri from the Institute of Tralee about how screencasting can be used to provide a reusable learning object to support teaching and learning of Anatomy and Injury Management. It uses video clips of injuries to players/athletes during major championships, races or games for analysis along with interactive anatomical images/graphics to provide a short DVD or interactive web-based courseware. It was a very impressive and comprehensive teaching package that is already showing great successes in teaching and treatments alike.

The time came for me to present my poster about how Media & Learning Technologies support final year Spanish Language students in a module which requires them to write a dramatic script and make a short film. I opted to make something that was different from the traditional A0 paper poster; instead coming up with a video poster. This was a good way of incorporating both the explanatory text and plenty of video clips that documented the production process and compared materials from before and after our interventions. It went down very well and plenty of debate arose about some of the technical proficiencies and artistic abilities which we ascribe to Digital Natives, that may not actually be present in the first place.

All in all, a good conference with plenty of food for thought.

Lecture capture – doing it well and at scale

Queen Mary, University of London.
June 16^th 2011

Earlier in the month I attended the ALT event Lecture capture – doing it well and at scale at Queen Mary, University of London. Lecture Capture is something that CLIPP has been involved in for three years now; having piloted Mediasite and Echo360, we now run Panopto, branded as Aston Replay for our students, and have it installed in all of our centrally booked lecture theatres.

After brief introductions from the exhibitors, Eoin McDonnell from QMU kicked off proceedings talking about their experiences of rolling out lecture capture, focusing on staff attitudes and anxieties to lecture capture. 13% of lecturers responding to a survey said they were ‘violently opposed’ to lecture capture and of those, 100% had accessed lecture recordings from other universities. Students at QMU viewed the recorded sessions as a backup to the real thing – they still want lectures.

Lecture Capture at Aston, 1980s style

Kris Roger from London School of Economics spoke about how lecture capture at LSE started out with a single VCR as a  response to a request from a lecturer to needing to implement a scaleable solution across the institution. Aston has a long history of using video, meaning we started out with more than one VCR (see right for a shot from the archives).

The next two sessions were people who’ve built their own solutions. Dr. Marco Zennaro and Dr. Enrique Canessa, from the International Centre for Theoretical Physics, demonstrated a system that was developed in house at ICTP called openEyA – a  low cost solution running from an Ubuntu based netbook. At the time of writing, they have 7565 recorded hours of physics and mathmatics lectures available to view online. Dr. Neil Berry, University of Liverpool, demonstrated the use of capturing audio and computer screen during a lecture to provide recordings of Chemistry teaching.

Juliet Hinrichsen and Amanda Hardy from Coventry University discussed issues around staff development, and have a wealth of OER available on their website. While we have a lot of support materials available for staff, we don’t have many for students to get the most out of Replay which is something we will address over the summer.

Graham McElearney closed the day by talking about copyright. In a nutshell, if we didn’t make it, didn’t buy it, and it hasn’t been given to us then it isn’t ours to use. There are also limits on what can be recorded, while a lecturer is entitled to show a clip from a TV programme in a lecture room, they can’t record it.

The key thing that I took away from the event is that lecture capture will highlight any weaknesses already present in processes, a common example given was a lack of communication (a decision was took centrally to record lectures, but the first time the lecturers knew was when they received an automatic email telling them their recording was ready). Here at Aston, we don’t centrally control the recordings, we give the freedom to the lecturer to choose what and when to record. The main complaint we get is users have to log in twice to make a recording – once to the PC, and once to the recording software. This is down to the way PCs in our lecture theatres are configured and is something we’re keen to fix.

The Twitter backchannel at events is invaluable, providing extra content and encouraging discussion. I’ve collated some (ok, a lot) of the tweets about the event on Storify, and next time I’m at a similar event I’ll make sure I’ve got a laptop, rather than rely on my mobile phone.

Designing Augmented Spaces to Ensure Effective Information Visualisation and Critical Knowledge Formation.

Carl Smith – London Metropolitan

The first key note of the Durham Blackboard conference was presented by Carl Smith of London Metropolitan University, around the idea of Augmented Reality. The main concept of what he was presenting was showing how augmented reality can be used in teaching and learning.

Personally I didn’t think the examples used were maybe the best for the audience. This conference was very much focussed on very practical examples of how we can get more out of the systems we have and use them in better ways. The examples were very “blue sky” in some respects and I know that a lot of delegates found it difficult to translate them into ideas about how they could use the technology, which is a shame as I think there are many real world applications that would enhance learning. I came to this presentation already primed with an interest in the technology so possibly I was already on board and so had a more open mind about it.

Below are some points and reflections that I took from his talk.

• There can be a perception that augmented reality can actually dumb down the user as opposed to empowering. Being able to have instructions at your finger tips can mean that you don’t need to learn anything any more, or so the argument goes. Personally I feel this is totally wrong and applications that are in danger of dumbing down the user are just poorly designed as opposed to it being a problem inherit in the technology or concept. Its like suggesting a map is a “bad thing” because you don’t have to “know” where you are going.
• The world is the interface. I think that learning in context could be very useful to aid understanding. For example a map of the constellations would surely be more useful if you could see the names of stars while looking at them, instead of having to refer to an abstracted map. I had an experience recently where I was fixing part of the gearing system on a bike. I had to compare a printed diagram of the unit with the physical unit and attempt to work out which screw it was I was looking for. It would have been extremely useful to wear a pair of “smart glasses” and the augmentation highlight the screw I was looking for.
• Another important aspect of design of augmentation is to not fall in to the trap of just labelling objects and thinking your work is done. Just because you know a lump of metal is the face plate, doesn’t mean you know how to remove it, which is probably the reason you want to know where it is in the first place. Design needs to be smarter than this and has to really understand what it is a user is trying to do.

An example that was used is shown below in this video from BMW. I decided to use this one as I think this was the most practical example used and the easiest one to take ideas from. I think the implications for our engineering school are obvious.

Animation for all – a demonstration

I love the idea of making animations without using complex animation software and have been looking for alternatives to the PowerPoint standard animations that we’ve all seen a million times before. I’ve just discovered this very interesting short video (though it’s been around for over 3 weeks and already gathered 1.1 million views, so I’m patently not living on the technological frontiers here, people) which is part of the laudable Google Demo Slam project that is showcasing how Google apps can revolutionise our lives. It’s pretty self-explanatory (one of the many benefits of being made by nerds) but in short, 3 animators working as a team but in different locations, put together a fully animated presentation in Google Docs in only 3 days that fair blows your socks off. And the message is, if they can do this, think what you can do with such a simple and accessible outlet. “No animation software, no high-tech hardware, nothin’ but Google Docs” – couldn’t have put it better myself, ‘though I probably would have spelt it “hi-tech” but that’s just me….