Software for Synchronised Asynchronous Constructivist e-Learning

The ANU College of Engineering & Computer Science needed projects for students to do, I created one on "Software for Synchronised Asynchronous Constructivist e-Learning". This topic can then be tailored to the student's level (undergraduate to masters) and interests (software development or theory):

Student research opportunities

Software for Synchronised Asynchronous Constructivist e-Learning

Project Code: CECS_912

This project is available at the following levels:
CS single semester, Honours, Masters

Keywords:

asynchronous learning, synchronous learning, electronic learning, web conference, videoconferencing, pedagogy, MOOC

Supervisor:

Mr Tom Worthington

Outline:

On-line learning research literature uses the terms synchronous and asynchronous to describe tools and learning activities. This project will investigate software tools which will permit breaking down this division. It is proposed that syncronisation of asynchronous learning can address problems with large scale e-learning, such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). The combination of synchronous and asynchronous forms of on-line learning could be used to promote a constructivist approach. This could be done by relaxing the current lockstep approach of packages such as Blackboard Collaborate, where the aim is for all the class to see precisely the same images on screen at precisely the same time. As well as imposing severe limited on the equipment, this also limits the opportunity for the student to build their own internal model by exploring the topic for themselves, as they have to keep up with the live presentation. Relaxing the real time aspect would also the student time for reflection and to be able to explore the materials themselves, within a time limit.

Goals of this project

Provide a theoretical framework to synchronous and asynchronous forms of on-line learning and implement a free open source prototype to demonstrate this in practice.

Requirements/Prerequisites

Training, experience or an interest in teaching would be an advantage.

Student Gain

Software and tools to support e-learning is a growth industry worldwide.

Background Literature

Worthington, T. (2013). Synchronizing Asynchronous Learning: Combining Synchronous and Asynchronous Techniques. In Proceedings of 2013 8th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (ICCSE), 26 Apr - 28 Apr 2013 , Sri Lanka.

Preprint available at: http://hdl.handle.net/1885/9556

Presentation notes: http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/moocs_with_books/

Links

Synchronizing Asynchronous Learning: MOOCs with Books

Surveillance Style Headset for Video Conferences

Recently I have been taking part in numerous video conferences using my laptop. These require use of a headset to get reasonable quality sound. But you look a silly on camera with a big headset on. Also headsets can be uncomfortable to wear for extended periods. I found an air-tube headset in my local electronics shop. These are also called Surveillance Headsets (or security headsets) and are also used by TV presenters.

The surveillance headset has a soft ear plug which fits in one ear, connected to a clear plastic tube up over the ear and down the back of the neck with a curly tube. The tube ends in a clip attached to the collar. The neck clip has a wire which runs to a small box with clip to attach to your lapel, a push-to-talk (PTT) switch and microphone. This box has a second cable with a plug for the computer (some units have a separate lapel microphone).

That sounds complicated and it is a bit fiddly to put on. But once fitted, the ear-piece is very comfortable and not noticeable on camera. The unit I bought has a PTT switch. This is very handy for events with large numbers of participants where you only speak occasionally: you hold the switch to talk and so can't accidentally leave it on. Some units are designed for "VOX" so the microphone is on all the time and some have a VOX/PTT switch to select either mode. My unit has no VOX switch but I find a rubber band works fine to keep the microphone switch down for extended periods.

The tricky part is to find a surveillance headset with the plug for your computer. Most of the headsets have just one 3.5mm stereo style male plug, some have two mono 3.5mm male plugs, some a 3.5mm and a 2.5 mm plug. Most computers have two 3.5mm stereo sockets: one for the microphone and one for the earphone.

I made my own adapter cable. Otherwise you can make a connector from Cable Adapters. For mine this would be one 3.5mm Stereo Female to Two Male RCA Y-Cable (to split the 3.5mm stereo from the headset into two mono channels) and then two RCA Female to 3.5mm Stereo Male Adapters.

Also I found the headset works fine with my mobile phone, using a 3.5 mm to 2.5mm stereo adapter.

Bandwidth and Data Usage of On-line Education

Marshall Cowan, Operations Manager at NetSpot Pty Ltd complied very useful estimates of "Bandwidth and Data Usage of Wimba Classroom". These estimates are likley to hold for other real-time ("synchronous" in education terms) on-line education products. Four cases are presented, all for a typical 40 minute session:

1. Just listening, not video: 4kBps, 9.4MB.
   
2. Just listing and watching video: 20kBps, 46.88MB.
3. Just listing to a prerecorded session, with no video: 2.5kBps, 5.9MB.
4. Just listing and watching prerecorded video: 16kBps, 37.5MB.

An interesting aspect of this is the lower bandwidth and total data for prerecorded sessions. This is because better compression can be used. Just as students can assimilate information better if given more time, so can computers. ;-)

Web Presentation for World Computer Congress

I was relieved to get a message from Michelle Hills, Program Coordinator for the World Computer Congress 2010, to say they were able to download a copy of my presentation on Green ICT. Many conference organisers are uncomfortable with the idea of a web based presentation, assuming this requires a live Internet connection. They are unaware it is possible to easily store all the files needed for an off-line web presentation (in Firefox to save a web page: File > Save Page As > Web Page Complete).

I find a disturbing lack of knowledge of web technology in computer conference organisers. What tends to happen is that the organisers send me a request for my "PowerPoint presentation". I reply saying I am going to use the web and they reply saying that is fine. But then I get regular reminder messages saying that I have not yet submitted my PowerPoint presentation.

At one major conference recently, after explaining to the organisers several times and getting their agreement I could use the Web, I turned up to find no one had told the audio visual person I was using the Web. I would understand if these were conferences about coal mining, but at an event for IT professionals discussing Internet and the Web, it would seem reasonable to have the Internet and the web available.

There is a marked difference between academic and commercial conferences. Many academic computer conferences now issue the presenter with a user-id to upload their presentation before the event. This is automatically linked to the program and available from the podium. In contrast commercial organisers waste a lot of their time (and my time), asking for presentations to be sent by email and manually passing these around their organisation.

At a recent commercial conference the presentations were uploaded with random file names and no way to know which presentation was for which speaker. I suggested next time they create a slide which lists the program and link all the presentations to that. Then it is simply a matter of clicking on the name to start the presentation (I did this using an electronic white board at a conference in 1995).

Reflective paint for 3D video conference effect

At the hardware store recently I noticed spray cans of White Knight "Reflect-All light reflective paint" and thought it might be suitable for spraying on a walls to make a high efficiency screen for projector. I tried it out in a typical tutorial room at the ANU. To avoid damaging the walls I sprayed the paint onto a piece of transparent plastic and dark blue cardboard and attached these to the wall and projected onto them. I compared this with flat very light blue wall paint, a whiteboard and a projection screen.

The reflective paint worked as expected. However, working as a retro-reflector, the image only reflected a narrow cone of about ten degrees either side of the projector. This makes it impractical to use for a projection screen in a typical classroom.

The paint may still be of use in some difficult applications, such as in very bright lighting conditions, with a very dim projector, or one in a very large auditorium. The paint did not have the problems I was expecting with stray reflections and so there could be a very bright light source beside the screen without washing out the image.

The paint may have other uses. Because the light is reflected back strongly in the direction of the source, a camera at that point will show the subject in silhouette. This can be used to electronically extract the subject from the background. The subject can then be transmitted to a remote location and inserted into a scene. This effect is commonly created against a black background, reflective grey cloth or a specially coloured surface (chroma key). But the reflective paint would have the advantage of being able to be applied to any coloured surface. The wall of a meeting room or classroom could be painted without interfering with normal use of the room.

For educational or video videoconferencing use, a presenter could be videoed live in the room next to a projected presentation. The wall behind the presenter would act as a screen for the projected image seen by those in the room. The wall would also act as a reflector for the video image. The camera recording the presenter would be able to see them, but not the projected image. As a result just the image of the person could be recorded, or transmitted. Their presentation could be digitally inserted into the same video image, or transmitted separately in a separate video stream. This would provide a much higher quality image (and use less bandwidth) than attempting to record the presentation slides with a camera.

Reflective paint for invisible projection screens

At the hardware store recently I noticed spray cans of White Knight "Reflect-All light reflective paint". This is available in a silver metallic colour, but more interestingly also as a clear varnish. This might be suitable for spraying on a walls to make a high efficiency screen for projector, particularly new low power LED projectors. When not in use the screen would be all but invisible and could be painted on a dark colour wall.

The paint has "microbeads" which act as retro-reflectors, showing up brightly in the dark when a light is shone on them. This is similar to the material used in road markings. The difference is that it is available at the retail level and in a clear form, rather than the bright white used for road markings. Also the beads are much finer than those in road markings. The paint when applied looks like a frosted translucent finish with a rough mat texture. If applied in a thin coat to a very dark shiny surface it is noticeable as a milky film. In a thicker coat it looks like ground glass. But on a lighter matt surface, such as typical flat creme wall paint, it is all but invisible.

Having bought a can and tried it out the paint looks promising. It reflects so much more light than conventional paint that it would make a very good projection surface. This would be particularity useful for new LED projectors, which are not as bright as halogen ones. It would allow projectors to be used in much brighter environments and on dark and uneven surfaces.

But there are some limitations. As with any highly reflective screen, any blemishes are highlighted. The paint would need to be applied professionally, preferably by a trained operator with a professional spray gun, not the retail spray cans. The wall would have to be kept clean, as any grease would show up. Also any abrasive cleaner used may mar the surface. The microbeads reflect light back in a narrow cone, so there is not a wide viewing angle for the screen and the projector has to be near the viewer. The paint could not be used in a room with a brightly lit window, or spotlight opposite, as the reflective surface will show up (but then if used for protection there should not be a window or light opposite anyway).

The material could allow projection in rooms which are usually unsuitable. As an example, the projection surface could have lights or windows on each side. The ambient light would not be reflected towards the viewer, but the image from the projector would be.

Applied to a black or very dark wall this material might provide a way to produce a low cost hologram-like effect for video conferences. There are some systems using half silvered mirrors or film to give the appearance of the person in the room, however these are cumbersome and inflexible. Instead the lighting in the room could be carefully arranged so that it does not reflect from the wall into the camera lens. As a result the wall would be a very dark black, allowing anyone or anything in front to stand out clearly from the background for a very clear video image of the person. An image could be projected onto the same background which would show in sharp relief. With this arrangement two people could be in separate remote locations, with their images projected next to each of them, so they both appear to be standing next to each other at both locations.

It might also be interesting to apply the paint to glass or clear plastic sheeting. This would create a sheet of translucent frosted material which would act as a very good projection surface. A meeting room could have a frosted glass wall onto a corridor, which could be used as the projection screen. With the lighting carefully arranged, the image would be clearly visible in the room, but not in the corridor on the other side.

Before using the material on a large scale in a confined space the safety of the microbeads and the paint they are embedded in would need to be considered. The spray gives off a strong paint smell and some of the microbeads may become airborne in the process.

ps: The pain might also create a new form of subtle graffiti: The reflective paint is not visible during the day, but would show up clearly in car headlights at night.

DimDim Web Conference for E-learning

DimDim is a web conferencing product popular for education. This is because it offers a free service for conferences with up to 20 participants. It also claims to require no software download and be open source. However, it uses Adobe Flash for the audio and video, so that needs to already be installed on the computer used. I found DimDim very easy to sign up for and start a conference with. It has the usual whiteboard, desktop and presentation sharing features of such products. One interesting feature is web co-browsing, where the presenter selects a web page and it is displayed on the participants screens, scrolling synchronised with the presenter's screen.

Co-browsing works very well with HTML Slidy presentations, such as my "Learning to lower costs and carbon emissions with ICT" (slides). This could be very useful for bandwidth efficient presentations, as the Slidy slides use a lot less storage than the typical Powerpoint or OpenOffice.Org presentation. With the video frame rate turned down (or off) and the audio reduced to telephone quality, the web conference would use very little bandwidth. USQ's ICE open source e-learning content creation system produces Slidy as part of a course package, which would then work well with DimDim.

One catch is that, for security reasons, DimDim does not work with web sites which require you to enter a user-id and password. I found that this stopped access to Moodle courses, even those which allow access without a user id (I will ask DimDim to fix this). Another limitation is that the web browsing is not recorded along with the audio, video and other content.