Tag Archives: camera

audio, lost in translation, video

Lost in translation: cameras and microphones

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video recording
Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

As part of my work in looking at the challenges in delivering teaching remotely during this crisis period I have been reflecting on how teaching staff can translate their existing practice into new models of delivery that could result in better learning, but also have less of detrimental impact on staff an students.

One of the things we noticed when the pandemic struck and lockdown happened, was as the education sector moved rapidly to remote delivery was the different models that people used. However what we did see was many people were translating their usual practice to an online version.

In my post on translating the lecture I discussed the challenges of translating your 60minute lecture into a 60 minute online video presentation. 

There are some problems with this as you are not providing an online video version of the lecture. You are using a platform like Teams or Zoom to deliver the lecture via a webcam. You will not be able to “read” the room as you can in a face to face environment. Video presentations also lose much of the energy that a physical presentation has. It can flatten the experience and people will disengage quite rapidly.

In a couple of posts in this series I discussed how you could reflect on the format of the lecture by looking at how content is produced and delivered for television and radio. 

One aspect I didn’t discuss in too much detail was the technical aspects of recording videos or audio files.

webcam
Photo by Waldemar Brandt on Unsplash

Back in the day, most laptops didn’t have webcams, and I remember buying external iSight cameras to use with my G5 Power Mac. Today you would be hard pressed to buy a laptop without a built-in webcam, the iPad comes with two cameras (front and back). It’s the same with microphones, the G5 Power Mac had an audio-in mini-jack for an external microphone, though I went out and got a USB Blue Snowball.

So today most people using a computer will have the technical capability to record video and audio easily. However there is more to creating high quality content than the ability to turn on a webcam or speak into the laptop microphone. These tools are fine for video conferencing, but aren’t necessity ideal for creating videos or audio recordings.

microphone
Image by StockSnap from Pixabay

Using external cameras and microphones is one way in which to enable better quality recordings than using the built in hardware on your laptop.

During the pandemic lockdowns, using your laptop was acceptable. Moving forward and creating new recordings, it makes sense to have better equipment. It’s not just about cameras, but also decent microphones for those cameras.

Most institutions will (probably) have equipment which staff can use, but if there is a strategic approach to building a sustainable approach to the use of video and audio, then universities will need to reflect if they have sufficient resources to support the increased demand for cameras and microphones.

video recording
Image by Pexels from Pixabay

Going forward maybe having decent cameras and microphones will be the staple of academic kit, in the same way that laptops are now provided.

In a future post I will talk about creating an ideal environment for recording television style and radio content.

learning, weeknotes

Phasing in and out – Weeknote #142 – 19th November 2021

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So this was my first full week back at work. Well I say that, but due to having to use a fair amount of leave  carried over from last year, I only worked three days this week. Still recovering from Covid this was actually a blessing as it meant I didn’t need to exhaust myself out.

I am spending time catching up with what’s been happening while I was off sick.

I went to the office on Monday, it was quite quiet. I am still phasing back into work (not quite a phased return, but certainly a slow return).

I worked from home on Tuesday and spent much of the day reading and writing.

I also headed to Bristol on Wednesday. I went in later and then met an old colleagues for drink after work, which was nice.

I wrote a few thought pieces this week.

I put down a few thoughts about transformation.

Success in digital teaching and learning is much about understanding about what is required for transformation to take advantage of the affordances and opportunities that digital can offer and not about taking what works in-person and making digital copies of existing practices.

I have written quite a bit about transformation and translation, but this post was more about the reasons why we more often just copy rather than transform.

The first Polish language dictionary (published 1746) included definitions such as: “Horse: Everyone knows what a horse is.”

One thing I have noticed working in further and higher education, is the assumption that everyone assumes that everyone knows what terms mean. The reality is that often there isn’t a shared understanding of key terms such as, digital transformation, digital university, online learning, blended learning, hybrid learning and so on…

I wrote another post about this shared understanding and working towards a clear (and shared) understanding.

The definition doesn’t need to be definitive, but the relevant stakeholders need to have clarity and a shared understanding of that definition.

At the beginning of the week I wrote some thoughts about student cameras.

During the pandemic there was a widespread culture of “cameras off” by students. As part of research we did,  in interviews, this was commented on by both staff and students. Staff felt that often they were talking to a blank screen as all the students had their cameras off and unlike in an in-person session they couldn’t see and read the students’ reaction to their lecture.

Though as the pandemic recedes (I know), maybe this becomes less of an issue for universities, but certainly going forward if universities are going to take advantage of the affordances of online and blended learning, the issue of cameras does need to be addressed.

My top tweet this week was this one.

learning

Ground rules – student cameras

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webcam
Photo by Emiliano Cicero on Unsplash

During the pandemic there was a widespread culture of “cameras off” by students. As part of research we did, in interviews, this was commented on by both staff and students. Staff felt that often they were talking to a blank screen as all the students had their cameras off and unlike in an in-person session they couldn’t see and read the students’ reaction to their lecture.

This is perhaps most starkly and consistently illustrated by the delivery of lectures through video and the use of cameras by students. Lecturers have generally, with a few exceptions, been praised for their delivery. However, while most students clearly have access to the required equipment they have been very reluctant to use their own cameras. The result has been that lecturers have often been left with little visual feedback of the type available in a lecture theatre, indeed they even wonder if the audience is engaging at all.

“I like to have my camera on when it’s just me and the lecturer with the camera on. And no one else,…”

Staff were often unaware why the students were reluctant to turn their cameras on.

“They’ve been very, very reluctant to have cameras on. I don’t know why that is.”

It certainly had an impact and some staff attempted to rectify and change the culture.

“I’m sat here, lecturing away for two hours to a blank screen, which is disconcerting. And if you read through the literature out there, lots of academics have started to say, “look, guys, I’m actually quite lonely. Can you please be cameras on?” That seems to work.”

The reasons for this reticence from students was explored during the interview process. It is clear that for many students there is a fear of being judged by their peers. In a traditional lecture theatre attention is focused upon the lecturer while in a virtual lecture it is easy to browse across the audience. In some cases, of course, it may be that students have logged in to give the appearance of attendance but not continued to view the lecture or that they may be viewing while in bed!

In some cases students wanted to turn on their camera but felt that the precedent had been set at the start of the course, not to use a camera and it would now be difficult to go against the “no camera” culture.

Zoom
Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash

One potential solution is to think about setting ground rules. In order to inhibit this “no camera” culture lecturers could make it clear that use of a camera was expected from the start of the course. This needs to happen before the course starts. This will allow students to reflect on where they might attend the online session and ensure they are prepared to be in front of the camera.

The university may also want to consider ensuring space is available on campus for students to participation in online sessions.

It should also be planned on which sessions cameras are required, encouraged, optional, or not needed. Cameras should only be on when it adds to the session. Lecturers should consider why they are asking for cameras on for that session and what is adds to the learning experience.

Where lectures don’t require interaction from students, lecturers may want to consider is it necessary to deliver the session live, and a pre-recorded session may be an option.

stuff

Running Pilots

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Pilots running for their planes

So are you thinking about running a pilot or a trial?

How many pilots do we need? Or is it more a question that we need to run a pilot at our institution before we think about “rolling” it out across all curriculum areas. I am also aware of successful pilots in one curriculum area which have been followed by virtually identical pilots in a second curriculum area… Why? Well the learners are different! Really! How different, they have two heads or something? That actually raises a question on any pilot, well successful pilots have resulted in a roll out across the whole institution?

We do see institutions that use tools such as Powerpoint across the institution, similarly we see some institutions have embedded the use of the VLE. However was this via projects and pilots? Or was it something different?

Do pilots actually help institutions move forward in using learning technologies or are they causing problems rather than solutions?

Do you read about pilots and projects from other organisations? Do you follow their advice when implementing new technologies or do you decide to run your own pilot? If we don’t learn from pilots that others do, is there any point in doing or talking about pilots?

I also had a recent conversation where the institution was going to do a pilot as it couldn’t afford a mainstream rollout of the technology. Now this I really didn’t understand, you already know from the research undertaken that the technology works and has a positive impact, however rather than buy enough for the institution you’re only going to buy enough to repeat the pilot already done. Why couldn’t they buy enough? Well they weren’t given the funding.

So….

Maybe the question is, why aren’t the people who are making the financial decisions reading the research and project outcomes?

Hmmm….

Personally my view is that if there is only enough money for a pilot, it’s probably not worth doing and you would be better off spending the money on reinforcing and enhancing the use of a technology you already have. However many might see that as boring.

I thought I would mention some of things I have done at my institution in relation to the introduction of new technologies and the impact they have had.

e-Books

When the JISC Collections e-Books for FE announcement was made, I immediately signed the college up. I recall talking to a colleague who said “so which group of students should we pilot this with”. I thought for a minute and wondered why we needed to do a pilot or a trial. Hadn’t JISC Collections already done that, seen the need to provide the collection and given us an opportunity. So I replied, “no we’re not going to do a pilot, we’re going to launch it for all learners and tell everyone about it, the pilot projects have already been done by JISC, e-books do work, they support, enhance and enrich learning, why on earth would we want to repeat that work, to get the same results, oh and get no funding to do it?” As a result of the mainstream launch of the e-books into the college, we now have learners and practitioners using e-books to support their learning. No need to do a pilot, we knew it worked elsewhere, so why wouldn’t it work at our college?

Video Cameras

I could go on about Flip’ping Pilots, but when an opportunity came to purchase some SD card based video cameras, rather than buy a set of 15 and see how they worked out with groups, we purchased over 300 cameras. The result was just what I expected. More practitioners creating and using video in their teaching. Learners using video for assessment and reflection. Availability of the cameras was the real issue, having lots of them meant that whenever someone wanted to use one, either they had one in their pocket or could get hold a class set really easily. Was I concerned about spending that amount of money on cameras that wouldn’t be used? Well probably slightly, however pilots and projects done elsewhere had demonstrated again and again that video had had a really positive impact on teaching and learning, so why wouldn’t it work at our college?

Clickers

I remember seeing a demonstration of Activexpression by Promethean at my college and been very impressed, the main reason I liked the system over other “clicker” systems including the Promethean Activote was that you could use the system without needing to spend ages preparing the questions in advance.

However another thing I knew, from reading about projects that had implemented clickers in other institutions was that staff didn’t use their sets of clickers very much because they weren’t sure if they would be available, but when they did use them they really thought they worked effectively. The lesson was simple, ensure you have enough clickers available. We also had a need to make assessment more engaging and “fun”, clickers or voting units seemed like an ideal solution based on the work done elsewhere. So once more when some funding was available, we purchased 1500 Activexpression handsets, nearly enough for a hundred classes! They were made available in a range of departments. The result? Well most of the sets were used and used on a regular basis to the point where they are embedded into practice. However I should say not all departments engaged with the technology and some were left in cupboards. However after a period of implementation and relection we relocated the sets not been used. The result was across many curriculum areas the clickers were been actively used to enhance and enrich learning. I had seen the results of many pilots and projects that had used clickers and voting units, so why wouldn’t it work at our college?

iPads

When the iPad first came out, I didn’t think it was going to be the radical device for me that it has eventually come to be. In the end I was really impressed with the device and how it improved my efficiency and workflows for my job. As a result I bought every member of the management team in my centre an iPad. As well as the Libraries and e-Learning, my centre includes Construction, Engineering and Schools Liaison. I certainly didn’t see this as a pilot or a project, much more about them benefiting from the lessons I had learnt. I have had quite a few people in the college come and ask me to provide them with iPads (like I have the budget for that) or have asked to “pilot” them with a group of their learners. As far as I am concerned there have been lots of iPad pilots and projects elsewhere in the world and my college doesn’t need to repeat those experiences, the lessons have been published, the problems identified and many of the issues resolved. For me the question is now, now are iPads useful or will they enhance and enrich learning, no the question for me is, will iPads solve a specific problem we have in the college, will they increase retention and achievement for a particular cohort? If I can answer those questions I can then ask the question will the cost of the iPads be outweighed by the benefit they will bring? We don’t have that many iPads at my college, those that do have them, find they are really useful and have had quite an impact on their work. Elsewhere other iPad projects have demonstrated the value they can bring to learning, so why wouldn’t it work at our college?

Thinking differently

So with all the wonderful stuff that has been discussed at various conferences and events, I wonder how many of you are thinking about your next project, your next pilot, your next research grant bid… Do I only want to do a pilot because a) everyone else is doing a pilot and b) it means I get an exciting new gadget to play with c) I need to be seen to be doing new and innovative stuff. Pilots are fun, aren’t they?

Or are you thinking differently, thinking about why wouldn’t this work at my place? Why can’t I do a mainstream roll out of this new technology.

Are you thinking differently?

ipad

It had all gone horribly wrong…

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Sometimes you make a wise decision and sometimes you make a mistake.

When I ordered my iPad back on the 10th May when it was announced that it would be delivered on the 28th May I made the decision NOT to order the iPad Camera Connection Kit. My reasoning would be (based on previous experience) was that if there were problems with the delivery of the iPad Camera Connection Kit then my iPad would be delayed and I didn’t want that to happen. I also thought I wouldn’t have a problem getting one in my local Apple Store…

So how wrong was I?

Way wrong!

Both the local Bristol stores had sold out pretty quickly, basically within a day of the release of the iPad.

The online Apple Store suddenly went to a 4-6 weeks delivery time.

It had all gone horribly wrong…

I did consider ordering one from the online store, I could wait… but they wanted to charge me £5 for delivery that I wasn’t willing to pay.

I thought, I’ll wait four weeks and get one from the Apple stores in Bristol.

I waited…

I waited…

I checked with the Apple stores a month later and still no luck and no joy.

I checked the online Store and, still 4-6 weeks delivery and still going to charge me £5.

I waited…

So in the end I thought I really do want this connection kit for ALT-C, that’s at the beginning of September and that’s just under 4-6 weeks away.

On the 20th July I placed my order for the iPad Camera Connection Kit. By my reckoning it should arrive just in time for ALT-C.

First surprise was that I wasn’t charged for delivery, free delivery for the kit. That was nice.

Then in the e-mail confirming my order it said:

We estimate your order to be shipped by 5 – 7 business days.
I thought that’s not 4-6 weeks! Quick check of the website saw the 4-6 weeks had been reduced to 2-3 weeks.

Well that’s nice.

Then on the 24th July I got an e-mail stating my order had been shipped. It arrived on the 28th July.

Of course I needed to test it, so out with the DSLR and a quick picture later I connected the camera via the USB.

It worked a treat imported the image, I could then upload it using Osfoora HD to TwitPic via Twitter.

Well pleased and impressed.

Pity it took so long!

app of the week

Hipstamatic – iPhone App of the Week

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Hipstamatic – iPhone App of the Week

This is a regular feature of the blog looking at the various iPhone Apps available. Some of the apps will be useful for those involved in learning technologies, others will be useful in improving the way in which you work, whilst a few will be just plain fun! Some will be free, others will cost a little and one or two will be what some will think is quite expensive. Though called iPhone App of the Week, most of these apps will also work on the iPod touch.

This week’s App is Hipstamatic.

Digital photography never looked so analog. The Hipstamatic brings back the look, feel, unpredictable beauty, and fun of plastic toy cameras of the past! The Hipstamatic keeps the the quirks of shooting old school but gives you the ability to swap lenses, film, and flash settings all with the swipe of a finger. Characterized by vignettes, blurring, over saturation, discolored images, Hipstaprints have a casual and seemingly accidental snapshot feel. Pictures taken with the Hipstamatic have their very own look and unique character. Artistic and painted with light and quirk, Hipstamatic images are sometimes surprising and offer a delicate beauty turning any iPhone into an instant art making machine. Images can be uploaded directly to Facebook, Flickr, or emailed to your friends and family.

£1.19

This is one of the many camera or photo apps I own and is in the “fun” category. Basically it turns your iPhone into an old film camera from 1974!

Using a variety of lenses and “films” you can take some “old school” photographs.

It has a bit of a quirky interface that takes some getting use to.

I quite like the effects and can see some use for the types of images it produces.

Interesting (as is happening with many apps) you can purchase in-app upgrades.

Additional lenses, films, and flashes are bundled within the app as ‘Hipstapaks’ and start at 59p. Each Hipstapak includes multiple items.

This is a two edged sword for me, it makes the core app cheaper (or even free) however means for added functionality and features you need to pay an upgrade. Fine if you own the phone, less so if you have an institutionally owned phone and don’t have access to the iTunes account for the phone.

I like Hipstamatic but it is quirky and won’t appeal to everyone.

app of the week, iphone, ipod touch

Black & White Camera – iPhone App of the Week

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Black & White Camera – iPhone App of the Week

This is a regular feature of the blog looking at the various iPhone Apps available. Some of the apps will be useful for those involved in learning technologies, others will be useful in improving the way in which you work, whilst a few will be just plain fun! Some will be free, others will cost a little and one or two will be what some will think is quite expensive. Though called iPhone App of the Week, most of these apps will also work on the iPod touch.

This week’s App is Black & White Camera.

If you love black and white photography, this is the app for you! Just take a photo or pick a picture from your photo library, you will get beautiful black and white art photos.

Features:

– Create black and white photos directly using iPhone
– Create black and white photos for pictures in photo library
– Automatically create and save to file
– Processed and saved in original size
– Fast processing & saving
– Polished UI, beautiful design

The pro version “Black & White Camera Pro” comes with flash to do fine grain brightness adjustment.

Free and £0.59 for the Pro Version.

I sometimes think the best Apps for the iPhone are the simple ones, the ones that do one thing well.

Black & White Camera is one of those Apps, you take a photograph, it converts it to Black & White and saves it as a new image to your camera roll.

Nothing more and nothing less.

It’s a free app, the pro version has a “flash” but that isn’t necessary for most photographs. If you want to use photographs from your photo library (for example on an iPod touch) then you can do that too.

Regular readers of the blog will know that I do like to use black and white images to illustrate posts. This App allows me to take a picture and use it in a blog article quickly and easily. The top image was created using this App.

stuff

USB Microscope

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There are many different types of cameras on the market, and a fair few USB cameras out there.

At Gloucestershire College we have just invested in some new USB cameras, however these are not standard USB cameras, these are USB Microscope cameras.

Install the software, connect the USB microscope and then place whatever you need under it. Once in focus and or zoomed in you can then take an image or capture a video.

You also have the possibility of a live preview, therefore showing what is happening live under the microscope through a data projector, even to an interactive whiteboard.

This is an eyebrow.

There are many uses for this in various curriculum areas.

The obvious choice is Biology to look at biological specimens under the microscope.

Hairdressing and Beauty Therapy have many uses for looking at hair and skin in much more detail.

Computing can stick the microscope into a PC or over a circuit board to see it in more detail.

Engineering can use it to look at issues with components or engine parts.

There are a wealth of uses, what would you use it for?

gloucestershire college, video

Shiny Dragon Boating

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One of the key things about getting staff to use technology, is to remove barriers.

One of the barriers is a lack of familiarity.

When asked by a member of staff if they could use one of our Sanyo CA9 cameras to film themselves in the recent Gloucester Docks Dragon Boat race, the answer was of course, and here is the result.

The next stage will be to take that video and show the member of staff how mobile versions can be made. This will include tools we already have in college and possibly using MoLeTV.

As a result we now have a member of staff who will be confident in the use of video technologies and the use of video with mobile devices.

Oh and a video for use on our atrium’s Knowledge Tree.

Post first appeared on Shiny.