Evolving as a digital teacher: Tools of the trade (Part 7)

Have you ever seen some whiteboard animated videos that bring the message intended to come alive simply by using animation? I used to be fascinated at how they are able to do this and what skill level it would require to even do one. Well guess what, over the years, various tools and apps have been developed that anybody these days could come up with cool whiteboard animations all with the click of a button. Easier said than done as it really does take a bit of time and practice. 

Here is several proprietary whiteboard animation software that you may find on the market.

• VideoScribe
• Powtoon
• Moovly
• VideoRobot
• Prezi
• Adobe Animate and there's just too many to list all of them here.
  

Yes, I listed VideoScribe top of the list because that is what I have tried and have liked.

Generation Z - Digital Natives

While millennials were introduced to technology relatively early on in their lives, Gen Z don’t know life without it. Since social media and Google have been at their fingertips, students are used to instant information and teaching themselves anything they want to know with YouTube. 

With that in mind, students often expect instant results from teachers and find it much easier to learn from video than they do books. While this shift might take a bit of adjustment, it’s a great opportunity for teachers and students to develop their video skills.(2020, Educator’s guide to using animated video in and out of the classroom)

What is VideoScribe?

VideoScribe is the name of the software for creating whiteboard animations automatically. It is easy (trust me after several attempts), quick, and pretty inexpensive also for a very powerful and resource-rich tool. It was launched in 2012 by UK company Sparkol. After only two years on the market, it had more than 250,000 users in 135 countries around the world. It has remained since as a very popular whiteboard animation tool that is used for instructional videos to advertisements.

Here is a one-minute overview by VideoScribe.

I first downloaded a trial copy of this application back in 2016 and have been teaching myself how to use it by watching tutorials online and of course trying my hands at making short instructional videos. It really does require a bit of practice for those without any previous knowledge of using similar tools.

You can begin by watching this short tutorial from VideoScribe.

Here is the link to download a 1 week free trial. You may purchase the single user license for $14/month (approx. K50 monthly). Best option would be to get a team license (in an educational setting) as more members would mean less cost.

Since then I have learnt a few things about the tool and have managed to create a few short whiteboard animations to explain some basic concepts for my classes.

The fun part is the learning process. I've learnt to create a script first, organize what I like to call assets (images, text, transition, timing etc) in the script. Once you have this laid out then you can record and do the voice-over. 

Here are some sample videos I have created. (Please note they are the results of my 'learn-driving' this application :). I am still learning to do this properly.)

The first video was probably my first explaining the different route types.

 

An explanation on the purpose of DHCP. (You can hear the famous Madang Flying Foxes chirping away in the background. DWU is home to many of these flying foxes)

 Quick introductory to EtherChannels

The purpose of PPP

Hope this will inspire you to try out VideoScribe or even the other apps listed above.

Comment below if you use a different tool that achieves a similar or better result. Also let me know if you would like me to do a video tutorial on VideoScribe.

With that, keep tinkering with technology!

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Evolving as a digital teacher: Tools of the trade (Part 6)

A sample video of the many videos I have done and put up on Youtube for my classes. Note that this is the only second video I have listed as 'public' with the DWU logo. All these videos for my classes with the DWU logo are 'unlisted' so only students have access to them. I do not monetize these videos and they are the property of DWU (by contractual agreement ).

Note: I don't have the best tools nor do I have the best room space/setup but I make the most of what I have.

 

I use a Logitech Webcam for video and audio.

I do screen capture & editing using Camtasia. This handy tool has the capability to cancel out noise (requires a tweak). Get the 2020 version here.

Sometimes the live streams on the FB groups are done using OBS Studio (an open-source broadcasting software).

Graphics and video thumbnails are created using a site called canva.com

I use EpicPen to do the on-screen annotations.

I download non-copyright music for the background from tons of sites online. 

(Mind you several of my videos have landed me on copyright strikes because music downloaded and used without permission, so be careful when you use music from online and upload to Youtube)

 

#LifeOfADigitalTeacher

Evolving as a digital teacher: Tools of the trade (Part 5)

 

For us in PNG, online teaching may already be complementing face-to-face classes for some while others may be still planning on implementing it. We at DWU have already begun preparing and others have started teaching online. Among the plethora of tech tools available to achieve this you also have the pedagogy, one of them being the use of online discussion forums. Made even more popular through the many groups and pages on social media platforms that encourage this.

 

Leading an effective discussion in an online forum is a skill you can learn, much as you learned how to lead class discussions in person. An interesting article here on “The Chronicle of Higher Education” titled The Secret Weapon of Good Online Teaching: Discussion Forums

 

Flower Darby, the author, highlights six simple ways to foster meaningful conversations in an online forum:

1. Take part in the discussion.
2. But be strategic about your participation.
3. The better the question, the better the debate.
4. Ask students to write about something they find naturally interesting — like themselves.
5. Structure the online conversation.
6. Aim for organic, authentic conversation.

Read the article to find out more.

 

I really do not use discussion forums a lot in my online classes however when I do use them the participation in the conversation is not very encouraging in my opinion. Not a lot of my students respond to the discussion question. Even if they respond, the response is light and does not carry much thought in it to further discuss the point. Perhaps I too need to take into consideration a few of this pointers.

 

What is your take on this and how do you use discussion forums?

NICTA: Public consultation on Reference Interconnection Offer from PNG DataCo LTD on various Wholesale Access Services

NICTA has put up a public consultation on RIO from PNG DataCo on various wholesale access services on the August 19th, 2020.

The public consultation paper can be accessed via the link below.

https://www.nicta.gov.pg/2020/08/cp-0-14/

The consultative paper is in regard to a 'reference interconnection offer' put forward by DataCo.

The Reference Interconnection Offer is an offer document setting out matters relating to the price, and terms and conditions, under which DataCo will permit the interconnection of another carrier to its network. A RIO aims to provide and facilitate new entrants with sufficient information about a dominant carrier’s or another carrier’s network to assist it in its decision-making processes, and to provide a baseline for negotiating an interconnection agreement.

DataCo has divided wholesale access into five (5) different services, each with its own capacity, unit pricing per monthly basis, and conditions.

• Wholesale Internet Service (WIS)
• Domestic P2P Metro (up to 1km) over Fibre delivered to Customer Premises
• Domestic P2P Metro (more than 1 km) - over Fibre delivered to Customer Premises
• Domestic P2P Longhaul (DP2P-LH) over Fibre delivered to Customer Premises
• International P2P (IP2P) over Subsea Fibre delivered to at the CLS

Here is the updated (as of July 1st 2020) schedule of pricing for wholesale access services with details (Attachment B of the RIO). Note: this information is extracted from this consultative paper shared here for information purposes.

End-users (consumers) are hoping that lower prices at wholesale level will reflect at the retail end. 

The key matters associated with the RIO which NICTA considers should be highlighted are: 

• a.The form and minimum requirements of the RIO 
• b.Previous involvement in this RIO by NICTA
• c.Services covered in the RIO
• d.Relationship between the RIO and the proposed amendment to the Service-Specific Pricing Principles (Submarine Cable Services) Determination 2019

Each of these matters is discussed in the consultative paper and NICTA is inviting interested parties to consider and comment on the RIO.

DevPolicy Blog: No change in mobile internet prices in PNG

There has been much enthusiasm about new undersea internet cables in Papua New Guinea (PNG) and predicted improvements in internet pricing, speeds and reliability. This blog post looks at mobile internet prices in the first half of 2020.

Myself and two other colleagues collected data over a period of 6 months. The original article went through several edits before the final one was published to the Devpolicy blog.

During the refining of the article, two graphs were removed due to the fact that there was simply no change in the mobile internet prices so here are the graphs. As we continue to track the prices and observe any change in the prices than we will surely include graphs to illustrate the changes in the future article. Read the article on the devpolicy blog to make sense of what these graphs illustrate; there was simply no change despite several announcements made for a reduction in the prices.

The present state of interconnections between ASes in PNG

The Internet consists of thousands of Autonomous Systems (ASes) networks that are each owned and operated by a single institution. Usually each ISP operates one AS, though some ISPs may operate multiple ASes for business reasons. As is the case now with DataCo. The visual below shows you the interconnections between ASes within PNG, and compares the state of interconnections between the IPv4 and IPv6 address families. Notice there is ZERO interconnection for IPv6 to DataCo, only IPv4. (Writing an article on this very soon.)

From this visualization, you can also see which networks play an important connectivity role within our economy. Notice how the numbers (ASes) outside connect to the two ASes inside (17828, 136587) which belong to DataCo.

Over the last 5 years the number of Tier 2 and Tier 3 ISPs has grown in the country and should continue to grow with the PPC1 and CS cable pricing review (presumably lower pricing) and better arrangements through PNG IXP for ISPs and CDNs. I strongly believe that when this comes about it will bring new and real opportunities for economic development in the country. Research by the ITU has also shown that for every 10% increase in broadband penetration, GDP growth can be boosted by 1.21% to 1.38%. (Image source: https://stats.apnic.net/vizas/#)

Madang Harbor Cruise aboard MTS Kalibobo Spirit.

A rare opportunity to take a habour cruise aboard Melanesian Tourist Services (MTS) MV Kalibobo Spirit. This was an opportunity me and family could not pass when invited by bro Sibona Mani and Sir Peter Barter. Here are some of the moments captured using my rusty old Huawei phone. Videos aren't that very clear so if you want to experience it in person please do the right thing. Contact MTS!

You can find more about Melanesian Tourists Services on their website here. Stay in the Madang Resort Hotel or tour the nearby villages and islands aboard Kalibobo Spirit. You can also visit their Facebook Page to find out more...

Well thanks for watching!

Evolving as a digital teacher: Tools of the trade (Part 4)

Use Lesson Activity together with audio, short video and quiz.

A tutorial I created initially for colleagues in the Information Systems department, DWU but I would like to share it here on my blog as the 4th sequel to the Evolving as a digital teacher series. 

This tutorial is based on the use of Lesson Activity which is an activity tool in Moodle. 

Part 1 Lesson Plan.
Create a lesson plan based on the topic you are going to cover for that week.

Example: I want to cover a topic on VPN & IPsec concepts. This topic is part of a module that is already divided into three subtopics with clear objectives for each section. If you're using a text reference as a guide you may want to follow the text layout for each chapter.

Here are the key objectives for each section of the topic.

• Lesson 8.1 VPN Technology -  describe benefits of VPN technology.
• Lesson 8.2 Types of VPNs - describe different types of VPNs.
• Lesson 8.3 IPsec - explain how the IPsec framework is used to secure network traffic.

What I usually do is to identify what technique I want to use to cover each section and what tool will help me achieve that.

• Lesson 8.1 - Use Moodle's lesson activity to cover it.
• Lesson 8.2 - Post discussion points on Moodle and get students to post replies and contribute to the discussion. Creating the task as a Q&A forum and setting the options to allow students to post feedback to a discussion question which can then be rated using a rubric.
• Lesson 8.3 - Invite students to a 25 minutes Zoom or Webex online meeting/discussion.

For this tutorial, I will focus on Lesson 8.1 and demonstrate step-by-step on how to setup the Lesson activity.

Part 2 Creating the Lesson 
Creating the lesson will include an audio intro, a 30 minute pre-recorded video lecture followed by check your understanding quiz at the end of the lesson. (This is how I approach my lesson activity, you may have your style or method. Use what method works for you.)

1. Adding the Lesson activity

Click on Add an activity or resource and select Lesson.

Add a Name and Description. I'll leave out the other important details about a lesson activity like the Grade and Flow Control until the end of this tutorial. I'll go ahead and create the lesson.

Click on Save and Display.

2. Now to the Lesson

Evolving as a digital teacher: Tools of the trade - Part 3

Here at DWU, we have talked about online learning for several years now. Several workshops and seminars were conducted all in an effort to upskill academics in the area of online learning. One of the workshops I remember attending was with A/Professor Dr. Susan Crichton from University of British Columbia (UBC) back in 2015. There were quite a number of tools introduced during the week-long session.

Since then we've had lengthy discussions and musings over the pros and cons of online teaching among other things e-learning. Discussions continue to evolve on our university broadcast surrounding this topic as several staff already using various tools share through blog posts (like this post itself) and Youtube videos such as this and others shared by Bernard Yegiora (a DWU staff who also shares some digital teaching tutorials on his blog). We even had a separate Moodle site set up by ICT to experiment with online learning. This site unfortunately has been decommissioned recently this year. Initially not many were keen on taking on the idea of online teaching. In fact only two or three people used the DMS Moodle platform setup specifically for online learning. Reasons as to why academics did not take the challenge to at least offer a unit online are unknown.

DWU however does have a well established e-learning environment using Moodle established several years ago which has gone through various updates with one done recently beginning of this year adding additional features and plugins to allow for more functionality. This university-wide learning platform has been used for both its undergraduate programs and flexible mode programs. Use of Moodle in this case has been mainly for blended learning where lecturers upload resources and post assignments for student to access and for students to post task submissions for feedback. It was not used for full online learning programs. The traditional approach of face-to-face classroom style seminars and lectures is still the norm for most of our programs.

The idea of online teaching using video,web and audio conferencing tools for remote learning was there but somewhat shelved every time it came up in discussions for various reasons. 

Anyhow, it now seems the COVID-19 may well 'force' academics to start using the vast array of tools online that allow for remote learning. At least that is the approach taken now in many universities across the globe given the outbreak of this pandemic as this article suggests among many other similar articles.

• Shift to online learning due to COVID-19 requires rethink of teaching: experts
• The COVID-19 online pivot: Adapting university teaching to social distancing

This post will not talk about how you can move your classroom online, an expert at Harvard Business School has done that already and is sharing his expertise and experience by hosting several webinars like this one which you can sign up to attend or download recordings. Harvard Business Publishing also share some great resources on Moving Your Classroom Online.

In this post, I share with you briefly three online delivery options I have been using and which I am familiar with. I use all three of these tools at various times in the Graduate Certificate in Data Networking program that I teach for 14 weeks fully online (remotely) and 1 week face-to-face on campus.

Evolving as a digital teacher: Tools of the trade - Part 2

I am currently teaching a flexible learning graduate certificate (data networking) program under the Faculty of Business & Informatics. The course is instructor-led, mixture of asynchronous and synchronous mode (better known as blended block mode) with 14 weeks fully online and a 1 week F2F component for hands-on hardware practical and an exam. Course participants are mainly working class adult learners.

As an online course instructor, you have to put in a lot of work up-front in setting up the lessons for the online component and 'front-loading' a lot of the key concepts for learning during this learning phase so your learners are prepared for the 1-week intense practicals. Learners are expected to do their own readings with a bit of guidance and support through pre-recorded video lessons and a single weekly synchronous video webinar through Zoom. A tip I picked up here is to utilize the backward design approach in your lesson planning and especially with identifying what is critical to learn and what is additional information.

One challenge I face is with pre-recording video lectures. So much more when you have 2-3 other courses you are teaching full-time to undergraduates. One approach is the use of the software Camtasia to produce 5-10 minute explainer/demo videos (often demos using a network simulator application) - if videos go beyond (happens quite a lot) you may have to segment them into 'bite-size' chunks of 3-4 minute videos. I am doing all these from my desk in a shared office space or sometimes in the test center with just a laptop and a Logitech camera. Nothing fancy.

In this article, I share a tutorial on how I use Camtasia to record Cisco Packet Tracer demonstrations for my class.

Here is the finished video. Video length: 21 minutes.

Note: Video has audio recording.

Time taken to complete. 

• Preparation about 30 minutes 
• Video recording and post-prod editing: 30 minutes.

1. Reasons why I do this:

1. The unit IS601 Graduate Certificate in Data Networking that I am teaching under FLC is a 14 week online + 1 week F2F course. My target audience is "adult learners". During this 14 weeks 'participants' are expected to do their own reading and self-learning. I as a 'facilitator' only guide them along and summarize key concepts at the end of each topic and highlight key learning objectives.
2. This video I recorded covered 5 learning objectives for one topic all in one activity.
3. If you are teaching F2F, you may not have enough time in a week (just 4 contact hours is not enough for some) to cover as much as you can. Recording a video for 'course participants' to watch can be helpful.

2. Tools used

Camtasia - a proprietary tool from TechSmith that allows you to record your screen and edit videos with a powerful, yet easy-to-use video editor to create professional-looking videos.

Cisco Packet Tracer - this is a simulation tool purposely for teaching and learning data networking
and it may not so much be of use to other fields of study. We use this tool in our IS/MCS programs specifically for data networking.

Logitech C920 webcam - used here for audio recording only since the audio quality is very good compared to the inbuilt audio mic on the Dell laptop (in my opinion). Using the inbuilt mic is still good.

The tool I want to share with you is the Camtasia tool and how easy it can be to record and share a video without any time-consuming serious video-editing involved. It has a free trial version which you can download from the link given.

Start out by preparing a script before you record, or just plan out (in your head) what you are going to say and do for the duration of the video recording. I usually plan in my head as script doesn't work well for me - not used to it.

3. How I recorded this.

1. I prepared my Cisco Packet Tracer demonstration file. Created a sample starter file first (which I planned to give to participants to watch video and follow through using the same file).
2. Did some mental preparation on how I wanted the video demo to begin and end.
3. Listed down clear objectives to be achieved at the end of the video.
4. I then proceeded to the recording part. 

Note: I chose to record my audio as it is much easier explaining while recording than adding annotations or text later to explain what you are doing in the video demo (like what I have done in this tutorial, it took me a while to add annotations for each process...quite time-consuming).

Note: this video has no audio recording but annotations and text is used to describe what is happening.

Thanks for reading and watching these videos.
Let me know how this has helped you or how you use these tools too.

• Download a free trial of camtasia here. 
• Find techsmiths library of camtasia tutorials here.

NOTE:
Methods and digital tools / software / sites etc..etc.. shared is not a one-size fits all. What works for me may not work for you. We may all use Camtasia and you name it but in different ways and for different purposes and to achieve different results. The important thing is see from the different methods shared and adopt what works for you. Critique technology but don't hate it. Different tools can be used to address different learning aspects. 

 

Evolving as a digital teacher: Tools of the trade - Part 3