[HN Gopher] Options for giving math talks and lectures online
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Options for giving math talks and lectures online
Author : chmaynard
Score : 53 points
Date : 2020-03-10 20:48 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (terrytao.wordpress.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (terrytao.wordpress.com)
| hackermailman wrote:
| Flipped class example https://youtu.be/zec5cq6WiAk the students
| participate in live chat and sign into some proprietary software
| to answer exercises. Twitch stream/Youtube works fine though MIT
| has some kind of video software that automatically follows the
| lecturer with numerous angles for blackboards
| https://video.odl.mit.edu/collections/99c40d462fcf457e961185...
| analog31 wrote:
| If I were faced with switching to this mode quickly, and not
| futzing with a lot of technology, I'd think about rigging up a
| web cam to look down on a pad of paper.
| xenonite wrote:
| Last week, I tried teaching half of the university class in
| person, and the other half watched online. I sat at the desk in
| the classroom and streamed with Microsoft Teams
|
| 1) a video of me (using the selfie-camera on the iPhone) and
|
| 2) the screen content of my iPad, where I used the Pencil to
| write on PowerPoint slides.
|
| What was my experience? I missed a live feedback, both during
| lecturing, and while answering questions. I sort of talked into
| the void. Luckily there were still students in the same room, so
| I got a visual response here. However I think the feedback could
| be improved very much if each of the remote students would also
| stream their video (all at once, without audio). I hope this
| allows to have a more 'class-roomy' experience, also among the
| students themselves. Is there anyone with a similar setup and
| experience?
| throwawayiionqz wrote:
| I teach my regular class as you did: sitting at the desk,
| facing the students in the room, writing on a tablet whose
| screen is projected behind me.
|
| 1) I get a lot more eye contacts with the students this way
| versus using the blackboard, because I always face the students
| and never face the blackboard.
|
| 2) Beyond streaming the screen, there exist software that
| records and share what was displayed in previous slides.
| Students watching the video can then very easily (alt+tab)
| access another window where they can scroll to check previous
| slides. OneNote lets you do this for instance by sharing a
| notebook; the students can either access the notebook on a
| webpage (sluggish) or on their own OneNote app on a tablet. I
| typically have 1 notebook for each course and the notes taken
| during class are updated almost instantly (few seconds). Sadly
| OneNote has drawbacks: importing a PDF rasterizes it and the
| result is blurry/pixelated, and the latency for updating the
| notebook online is few seconds, so not good enough for online
| streaming.
|
| 3) Webex or similar conference software lets each participant
| send a video stream or a screen sharing stream. I intend to try
| this setup in the next few weeks: (a) me sharing a selfie video
| stream (b) me sharing my iPad screen where I write or annotate
| slides in OneNote, (c) the OneNote online notebook that
| students have access to in another window with all previously
| annotated slides, (d) hopefully the students streaming a selfie
| video of themselves to get visual feedback in the Webex
| meeting.
| saagarjha wrote:
| > I missed a live feedback, both during lecturing, and while
| answering questions.
|
| Perhaps you could integrate some sort of chat for this?
| OisinMoran wrote:
| Chat could be too information dense. Perhaps something like
| Facebook live reactions--maybe just a simple "slow down" or
| "I'm confused" button would work.
| xenonite wrote:
| There is a live chat functionality, yes, thank you for the
| idea. In terms of feedback, I miss fine detail, just in the
| moment: For example, if the students appear overwhelmed by an
| explanation, or if they like a joke.
| radicalbyte wrote:
| Twitch do streaming really well and you can use Discord to chat.
|
| Half the students will already be on Discord and probably on
| Twitch too.
|
| For a blackboard, why? With a computer you have infinite space as
| long as you're using some kind of note taking software. I know
| that I've abused OneNote's live editing feature to draw on my
| laptop screen via my tablet + pen. Plus everything electronic can
| be exported and shared.
| copperx wrote:
| What are the advantages of Twitch over something more
| business-y like Zoom?
| radicalbyte wrote:
| I've had better experience with the consumer/gaming tools
| than I have with "Business" tools. It's probably because they
| stay more focussed whilst the business tools morph into
| hydras as part of their data lock-in strategies (here's
| looking at you, Slack).
| wrsh07 wrote:
| I would love to see teachers take a page out of programming
| twitch streamers book and get proper live streaming setups
|
| I don't know that twitch is the best platform (honestly, it
| might be! It's used for this every day at a much larger scale
| than most schools imagine), but regardless, streamers have
| figured out pretty great and economical setups for streaming.
|
| (Eg https://medium.com/@suzhinton/my-twitch-live-coding-
| setup-b2... but I'm sure there are many many similar
| publications, some which might be better for beginners)
| jlangemeier wrote:
| And a wacom tablet can be a cheap way to supplement writing,
| drawing, and diagramming if you don't have a touch screen type
| device. There are also capture cameras that I've had lecturers
| use and seen artists use that could be put to good use here if
| the person providing instruction wants the actual "paper feel"
| while still providing those hand drawn results.
| sigstoat wrote:
| There's a respondent on the page suggesting OBS, the Open
| Broadcaster Software. I think that's the way to go. If you need
| to feed it in to Zoom or Skype or something, you should be able
| to use OBS-VirtualCam (haven't tried it myself, yet)
| https://obsproject.com/forum/resources/obs-virtualcam.539/
|
| one camera aimed at you, and another one aimed at your desk, with
| some different scenes set up in OBS for focusing on you, the
| desk, or some powerpoint slides.
|
| then let students use the textual chat feature. (just plain
| superior to taking audio from 20+ students simultaneously.
| that'll never turn out well.)
| hypersoar wrote:
| Since a lot of people are or will be administering exams, I want
| to put in a plug for the wonderful Gradescope (with which I have
| no association other than as a former user, and they sent me a
| t-shirt). I used it in my classes a couple years ago when I was a
| graduate student. It _massively_ streamlines the process of
| grading. Relevant to the current outbreak is the ability to
| easily return graded items to the students through the service.
| You can even handle regrade requests, should you choose to enable
| them. They also now seem to have some test-administration
| capabilities, but I 've never used that.
|
| The process for using it goes like this:
|
| 1. Upload a blank exam and mark where names and answers are (so,
| e.g., they'll know where on each exam to expect the student's
| answer to 2(b)).
|
| 2. Scan and upload the finished exams. Most copying machines can
| handle this pretty easily.
|
| 3. Use an OCR-assisted process to match exams to names or student
| ID numbers. Without ID numbers, this took me under 2 minutes for
| 40-50 students.
|
| 4. As you grade each problem, you make notes and deductions as
| you go. e.g. "You forgot the +C, -1 point". If you see the same
| error again, you can use a hotkey to affix the same note and
| deduction to subsequent exams. You can also grade additively, if
| you prefer. And you don't have to deal with stacks of paper
| exams.
|
| 5. If you decide to alter a note, or that you were to harsh or
| lenient on a particular error, the changes are applied to all
| exams with that mark. This takes a lot of pressure off of your
| initial grading decisions ("Oh, shit, it looks like getting that
| was harder than I thought. Should I go through all the exams and
| lower their deductions?"). The notes support LaTeX math symbols.
|
| 6. Once you're finished grading, you don't have to tally and
| enter the grades. No more worrying about final-grade-altering
| addition errors. You can export the results as a spreadsheet. You
| get granular, question-level data on how everyone did. You can
| publish the results to students. If you choose to accept regrade
| requests, you can do so without worrying about post-return
| alterations of answers.
|
| This is all without their upgraded AI-assisted service. It
| slashed about 75% off of the time I spent on grading and 90% off
| the stress of grading fairly and consistently. And it gets even
| better if you have multiple graders with their team service; no
| more coordinating the passing around of exams! Everyone can work
| at the same time.
|
| It's an absolute _godsend_ if you have a lot of grading to do. I
| can 't recommend it highly enough.
| wespiser_2018 wrote:
| I know the world is going to change because of COVID-19. I'm just
| not sure how much, or for how long. If one good thing comes out
| of this, forcing every college teacher in the US to teach
| remotely for the rest of the semester might lead to some
| interesting innovation!
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