Combining Synchronous and Asynchronous Learning Techniques

I will be presenting "Synchronizing Asynchronous Learning: Combining Synchronous and Asynchronous Techniques", at the 8th International Conference on Computer Science & Education (ICCSE), April 2013. In this I suggest that while a class of on-line students may not be physically present in the same place, or looking at materials at the same time, it still is useful to have checkpoints, so they progress as a group. The paper was originally prepared as an assignment for the USQ course Online Pedagogy in Practice.

Citation: 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.

Abstract: On-line learning uses the terms synchronous and asynchronous to describe tools and learning activities. This research looks into the origins of these terms, their use today and asks if these are the correct terms to use and if the use of these terms has held up the development of better tools and techniques.

Conclusion: Current on-line educational literature uses the terms synchronous and asynchronous with meanings different from their use in everyday language and in the computing discipline. It is recommended that these terms be replaced with “real time” and “store and forward”, as used in the computing discipline. As well as improving the clarity of discussions of educational theory, this will have practical benefits for the development and use of systems and educational techniques. In particular this can aid the thinking about the development of simpler software for learning support, combining the features of the store-and-forward LMS, with real-time video conferencing. It is recommended the term synchronous be returned to its original meaning and be applied to discussing the coordination of learning activities and the role of synchronization in the learning experience be explored.

A further area for research is the use of information diffusion analysis to automatically assess when an on-line class has reached an appropriate level of understanding of a topic and can move on, without the need for an explicit test. New system designs combining what have previously been though of as separate synchronous and asynchronous forms of on-line learning can then be merged to support a constructivist approach , where each student builds their own understanding in their own time, while also participating in the class to reach common goals.

Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: http://hdl.handle.net/1885/9556

Link to publisher version: http://www.ieee.org/conferences_events/conferences/conferencedetails/index.html?Conf_ID=30408 Type: Conference paper URI: http://hdl.handle.net/1885/9556
Appears in Collections: Open Access Research

Twitter-like Video Conferences

Recently I have been considering why real-time online education using video conferencing (called "synchronous online learning" by education theorists) works so poorly. The tools today seem little better than video conferencing from 15 years ago. While more bandwidth and more reliable links may help, I suggest that the technology is trying to solve the wrong problem, because a group discussion is not like a one on one conversation.

One thought was to accept that communication in a group of people, such as a class, is not like a one-to-one conversation. If we assumed that only one person can talk at a time (half-duplex) and only can say a little and then pause for a reply, that will make the technology easier and allow for more computer mediation.

A time limit of about 30 seconds, being the speaking equivalent of an SMS message, would seem reasonable. Breaking a conversation up into 30 second packets might seem very unnatural. But Twitter has been very successful, breaking text conversations up this way. While that makes the conversation less free-flowing, it adds many advantages.

But is 30 seconds a good length for an audio message? I started searching to see if there was any research on how long people talk for continuously in a conversation. After a couple of web searches I found there was a whole area of research devoted to the "length of utterance" and this is used to measure language proficiency.

The "turn length" for Small-group Discussions (Li & Nesi, 2004) discussions has been reported to be from 23.1 to 71.5 seconds. This suggests that the maximum length for an audio/video message needs to be longer than 30 seconds, perhaps 120 seconds.

Also interesting is that discussions between students finished after 5 minutes 49 seconds to 6 minutes 31 seconds. This is much shorter than the typical 30 or 60 minute business meeting or education class. Perhaps if we had a way to organize meetings and classes more easily, they could be of this more natural short length.

In addition the researchers noted differences in the structure of discussion between Chinese and English speakers. They also noted the frustration when the groups mixed and while they spoke the same language, they used different discussion techniques. Perhaps explicit cues could be built into the Computer Medicated Communications system, where something like emote-icons would indicate if the speaker was Reformulating a point, Endorsing, or so on. Also it may be useful to teach students about different discussion styles.

Reference

Li, M., & Nesi, H. (2004). Exchange Patterns in Small-group Discussions: a comparative study of Chinese and English discourse in peer group, divergent discussion tasks. The East Asian Learner, 1(2). Retrieved from: http://www.brookes.ac.uk/schools/education/eal/eal-1-2/vol1-no2-li-nesi.html

Web Conference for Teaching

Recently I took part in on-line training in the use of the "Adobe Connect", video conference software for education. The training was fun: Like a group of kids talking into tin cans connected by string.

Adobe Connect worked much better than when I tried Wimba Classroom and should be adequate for some teaching and research supervision.

I was able to install Adobe Connect for Linux and run the compatibility tests successfully. But it did not work for the live conference (I suspect there is just some little security setting to change for it to work). It worked well enough under Ms-Windows on a borrowed laptop (but like many in Computer Science I don't normally use MS-Windows).

While adequate, I did not think Adobe Connect as good as "Blackboard Collaborate" (previously called Elluminate Live!") and no better than the free open source alternatives available. In particular Connect is heavily dependent on Flash, giving it poor accessibility and limited support on non-Windows/Mac platforms. I was not able to increase the size of the text in the interface and could not move windows around on the screen.

I was able to change the bandwidth setting to "modem" and change to lower bandwidth audio and video settings. So this should work adequately for students on slow links.

A major lack is an automated on-line end-to-end test. What is needed is a place where you can verify the microphone, speakers and software are working, by sending audio and video over the network and having it played back.

One of the participants expressed surprise that video conference software has not improved much in the last ten years. What has improved is the training provided. Having the training on how to conduct a lesson on-line makes a bigger difference than the features of the software. But there are some extra features in the web classroom systems.

While I now know enough to use Adobe Connect, I am not sure what I might use it for, or how we use it with other teaching software, particularly Moodle. As an example, Adobe Connect has provision for dividing a class into groups.

In theory I could have a virtual TEAL room. That is 100 to 200 students could be on-line watching an instructor perform some demonstration or min-lecture Then the class world divide into groups of about 6 to 9 students and each try the experiment themselves or discuss the topic. Then the class would come back together and the groups report. But that would take more support than Adobe Connect provides.

Reducing the bandwidth requirements of web conferences with Adobe Connect

The use of web conferencing (that is video conferences using web based software) is becoming more common. Last year I tried out"Blackboard Collaborate" (previously called Elluminate Live!") and changed the settings so it would work on my slow wireless modem. At the moment I am trying out Adobe Connect at the ANU. I noticed it had similar options for reducing the bandwidth:

1. Set the maximum bandwidth to dial-up speed: Select Meetings > Preferences > Optimize Room Bandwidth and click on "Modem".
2. Set the video to low resolution: Meetings > Preferences > Video and select Video quality low. This is sufficient to give the sense of someone being there. Particularly if you are not the main speaker, this should do.
3. Set the audio to phone quality: By default the audio for conferences will be set higher than standard telephone quality audio (8,000 Hz). Unless you are conducting music lessons, setting this to telephone quality should be fine. This setting might improve the quality of the audio in some settings, as it will reject noise not in the range of the human voice. Select Meetings > Preferences > Audio and select the Speex Codec.
   
4. Set push to talk, with half duplex sound: Select Meetings > Preferences > Audio and set the Echo cancellation mode to "Half Duplex". By default the audio should be set so that you have to push a button to be heard. This prevents stray room sounds disturbing the participants and saves on bandwidth. Also setting half duplex helps with clarity: that is when your microphone is turned on, your speakers are turned off: you cannot talk and hear at the same time. People have to take turns to speak, which works well for large groups.

National TelePresence System

Mr. Gary Gray, Australian Special Minister of State, announced an upgrade of the National TelePresence System (NTS) 31 October 2011. The NTS is a secure video conference network used by federal government officials to replace travel. Apart from reducing travel costs (handy in the recent QANTAS airline shutdown), the system also reduces greenhouse gas emissions from travel.

The NTS was used for organizing the recent CHOGM meeting in Perth. It was claimed to have saved $12M and 2,330 tonnes of carbon emissions.

The NTS is also used for video conferences with state government officials for organizing routine meetings and during emergencies, such as floods. The system uses Telstra Next IPTM network and Cisco hardware and has been in operation since October 2009. The system cost $13.8 M over four years, with state government contributing $4.6M. There have been 1031 meetings totaling 1660 hours held.

Reducing the bandwidth requirements of web conferences

The use of web conferencing (that is video conferences using web based software) is becoming more common. Recently I have been taking part in video conferences using "Blackboard Collaborate" (previously called Elluminate Live!"). When used in my office with a high speed cable connection it works fine with the default settings. But when using my slower (and higher latency) wireless mobile modem, there are delays. This can be fixed by changing the settings in the conference software (the place where this is set differs amongst products, but they all do much the same thing):

1. Set the maximum bandwidth to dial-up speed: Collaborate has a minimum setting of 28.8 kbps. While slow by broadband speeds, this is still fast enough for two way audio, a small video window and slides. Even if your link has a higher theoretical speed, it may be worth setting this lower to allow a slow PC to keep up.
   
2. Set the video to a few frames per second: Collaborate has a minimum setting of 1 frame per second. This is sufficient to give the sense of someone being there. Particularly if you are not the main speaker, this should do. You can also make the image lower resolution. It also helps to set the system to automatically highlight the video of the current speaker, so you know who is talking.
   
3. Set the audio to 8,000 Hz: By default the audio for conferences will be set higher than standard telephone quality audio (8,000 Hz). Unless you are conducting music lessons, setting this to telephone quality should be fine. This setting might improve the quality of the audio in some settings, as it will reject noise not in the range of the human voice.
   
4. Set push to talk, with half duplex sound: By default the audio should be set so that you have to push a button to be heard. This prevents stray room sounds disturbing the participants and saves on bandwidth. Also setting half duplex helps with clarity: that is when your microphone is turned on, your speakers are turned off: you cannot talk and hear at the same time. People have to take turns to speak, which works well for large groups.
   

Follow-me Sync-surfing For Online Push Web Conferences

On further consideration the feature I would like most in a Real Time Learning Management System is Co-browsing, with Push web pages implementing Follow-me / Sync-surfing. This is what the Elluminate product calls "Web Tours". The person giving a presentation brings up a web page on their screen and this web address is sent to all participants and the web page displayed on their screen automatically.

Real Time Learning Management System

Recently I attended a series of on-line web conferences during the day about e-learning by the Australian Flexible Learning Framework and weekly web conferences with the staff of ACS Education. Both series used the Elluminate Live product.

While described as "Web conferencing", such video conference systems do not actually use a web browser, except to to launch the application, which consists of Java software downloaded via the Internet. It is remarkable that such web conferencing works as well as it does, even on a slow wireless mobile Internet connection (set the software to use no more than 28.8 kbps and one low resolution video frame per second). However, such systems have not advanced much in terms of functionality over video conference systems of ten years ago.

Apart from audio and video, the systems offer a text chat window, a white-board, application sharing and some polling functions. A major limitation with such systems is that native documents cannot be shared. That is when a power-point slide or a word processing document is shown to the group, they do not really get the document, but an image of part of the document.

Another problem is that these applications are separate from the Learning Management System software which students will also be using. Web conference systems offer integration with LMS such as Moodle, but this integration is implied to being able to launch the conference from within the application. The LMS applications do not interact with the web conference in real time.

It does not seem to be widely realized that an LMS can be used in real time by a group. I have used Moodle live in a face-to-face classroom. I could see when a student had completed a task from my Moodle console. It should therefore be possible to expand this to provide remote real time facilities, within Moodle. These need not be closely coupled to audio or video conferencing and could be used with a separate audio or video conference product to provide the audio and video or live in a classroom.

Some of the web conference features are:

• Participant status: The list of participants and their status is shown (present/absent, happy/sad, asking a question, applause). Moodle already has an "Online Users" block, which could be expanded to add status.
  
• Polls: This allows the moderator to survey the participants with multiple choice answers. Moodle has a survey module, but this is designed for formal course evaluation surveys. Moodle also has a "Quiz module", but this is designed for complex assessments. What is needed is a simple way to create "clicker" audience response function, as provided with VotaPedia.
• Text chat: This allows any participant to send a short text message to the group. Moodle has a "Message" function, but this directs message only to one address. There are forums for groups, but these do not refresh in real time and are designed for longer more complex messages. It should be possible to provide a real time message function module in Moodle.
• Web tours: Elluminate and some other web conference systems, allow a web address to be sent from the moderator to other participants where the web pages is displayed in their browser. As most LMS are web based, this could be an easy to implement function which would be very useful.
  
• Slide show presentations: Presentation of images with a live moving pointer is the main function used in the web conference. Moodle has not "slide" function: Files for Powerpoint and other presentation programs can be provided, but Moodle can't open or control them. Providing this could be complex and use of web tours would be a simpler alternative, with web based slides.
  
• Live or Recorded Audio and Video: Audio/and/or video is played and in some cases transmitted live. Moodle has provision for video and audio playback built in. This could be expanded to control an audio/video conference.
• Meeting Recording: The audio, video, slides, text chat and all other interaction of the session is recorded. This is a useful function.
  
• Whiteboard: A drawing window is displayed which the moderation and optionally, all other participants can draw on. There is no draw function in Moodle and this would need to be provided as an extra module.
  
• Screen sharing: An application on the moderator's desktop (or one of the participants) is relayed to all participants. There is no such function in Moodle. This would need to be added with an extra module.
  

Of the listed functions, the easiest to integrate into a LMS such as Moodle, to form a a useful package, would be the status, polls, text chat and web tours. These could be used in a face to face classroom or with a separate audio/video conference system. It should be noted that such a system does not need all functions tightly integrated. Different components can be synchronized with timing, without being delivered via the same system.

What might be interesting is to add time to all relevant parts of the LMS. At present the LMS is static, responding only to user input. But there is no reason it could not be animated.

Web Conferencing for Education

Every week for the last four weeks I have been taking part in vocational education seminars using the Elluminate Live! is a web conferencing program (similar products include DimDim). This provided audio to about 24 people, along with slides, a text chat window and some instant surveys. The system worked well from my ANU office, which has a very high speed Internet connection, but did not work well when I tried it from home using Virgin 3G wireless broadband. The slides and received audio worked well. But when I tired to talk, no audio was transmitted and I lost received audio for a few seconds. The Virgin "broadband" works much of the time at only about 48 kbps. But even that should be enough for audio conferences.

It would be interesting to see if any HTML5 web conference systems are developed. Describing Elluminate and DimDim as "web conference" systems is misleading as they actually use Java programs to provide their services, not web pages. With the extra functionality and standardization of HTML5 it may be possible to have a truly web based conference system.

Also it may be possible to reduce the networking requirements by building in more specific education functions to the packages. These systems allow for audio and video to be sent from all participants to all others. However, in practice, there will be one person talking and everyone else listing to them. The packages provide a "push to talk" function to cut off extraneous audio, but this requires a level of discipline amongst participants.

It is very easy to leave a microphone open without having intended to and difficult to work out who to pass the microphone to next. If these functions were explicitly built in they would make the bandwidth use more efficient and also make the meeting flow better. One way might be to have a system where participants could register their wish to speak and the system would indicate where they are in the queue. By default speakers could be queued in order in which they requested. When their turn came they could be promoted to speak and optionally be given a count down clock to show how much time they had to speak for.

Another function which would help the on-line meeting would be an agenda. It is common to display an agenda in a window of the web conference. However, the agenda is just an image and is not a live document. Instead the agenda could be a live web page with links to materials for that agenda item and a time for the item set. By default the system would move through the agenda automatically, using the time allocated for each item. A countdown clock would start with each item to indicate time remaining. Time could be allocated to the su-components of the item. Where there was time allcoated for discussion, this would be automatically divided amongst the people who indicated they wanted to speak.

Creating agendas and allocating time for people to speak sounds very rigid and complex. However, the conventional wisdom for business is that these are useful to preventing wasting time in meetings. In the case of e-learning it should be feasible to integrate the web conference with the materials provided via the Learning Management System (LMS). At present while web conference systems are offered integrated with LMS, about all you can do is launch the web conference from the LMS. The resources of the LMS are not available within the web conference. If you want to display a resource from the LMS in the web conferecne, you have to manually do this after starting the web conferecne. It should be feasible to prepare the agenda in the LMS and then have that and all the needed resources linked in the web conference automatically. Rather than have a different instant chat facility in the web conference it should be feasible to use the same one as in the LMS. In effect the web conference would be a live real time mode of the LMS.

With a web conferecne function in the LMS, the participants would see the same LMS screen they normally do, but with some extra windows for controlling audio, video and other live functions.

Latency

One issue may be the latency of the wireless link. Here is a PING test. This is using a Huawei E169 3G wireless modem to the Virgin (Optus) network:

1. Using a Huawei D100 3G Router : dark blue light: 10 packets transmitted, 10 received, 0% packet loss, time 9008ms
   rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 381.034/461.056/827.322/125.449 ms
   Light blue light: 10 packets transmitted, 10 received, 0% packet loss, time 9001ms
   rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 179.573/223.091/238.168/16.470 ms
   
   
2. Without router: dark blue light: 10 packets transmitted, 10 received, 0% packet loss, time 9009ms
   rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 134.128/167.720/213.010/36.132 ms
   

This seems to show that the use of the router makes little difference.