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Online Teaching Technology and Experience Sharing (ECSE)

Online teaching resource from RPI

https://info.rpi.edu/working-remotely

https://info.rpi.edu/teaching-and-learning-collaboratory

Remote access tools from various schools
bit.ly/rtresourcelist

IT Issues: submit request to https://itssc.rpi.edu/hc/en-us/requests/new (be specific, include all details, and mention that you are from ECSE would like assistance from Mick or Randall if possible)

ECSE Faculty Experience

Mediasite:

Hovercam:

Webex

  • Agung:  For my class (lectures using Hovercam + Matlab), I decided for the following setup:
    - Connect hovercam to my PC.
    - Run Webex Meeting or Webex Teams at usual class hours (students can watch and interact, or watch the recording later)
    - Stream writing on paper/tablet through hovercam. Matlab screen can be shared through Webex Meeting or Webex Teams as well.
    - Use Webex recording feature (stored in WebEx cloud)
    - At the end of class, the recording will be available in mp4 format in my PC (data rate = ~ 3MB/min of lecture).
    - Share the recorded video through RPI mediasite or the WebEx link. 
  • Shayla: For your classes there are some interesting features with WebEx Teams. Relatively intuitive since I got the gist of how to do it in 10 minutes or so. A few students were on and they tested it with me. They can form small groups within the class, I can send a document directly to that group, they can share handwritten notes on a whiteboard. This allows for our Team Assignments still occur in Circuits. Please see a tutorial (for Circuits, made by Camtasia Studio 8) at https://www.ecse.rpi.edu/~ssawyer/GeneralDesign/WebExTeams_31920/WebExTeams_31920.html Also intend to give a take home exam this way but only shared on WebEx over the allotted 2 hour time frame. Gradescope will require that it is submitted on time. I think technically they can be proctored (overkill)...but I'm not sure how many windows can be open at once.
  • Mahmood: Webex meetings protocol during live sessions - worked fairly well with 23 student participants: 

    a. Turn off microphone and camera
    b. Turn on microphone only while interacting with instructor
    c. You may turn on your camera before class starts or after it ends (if you wish)
    d. Questions will be queued in the chat window
    e. If you have a question type in the next available integer in the chat box, starting with 1. Instructor will call your number and take your question in an increasing order.
    f.  If you think your question was answered before the instructor got to your number, then type in number followed by X in the chat box. For example 3 X to remove Q3 from queue. Don’t reuse the number after it gets removed.

  • Agung: You can log in to the session (e.g., your office hour or class) with multiple Webex Teams clients at the same time, e.g., one on your PC and one on your tablet. That way, you can talk to students, show them lecture notes or MATLAB code, etc on the PC, and use your tablet to scribble on the whiteboard.

  • Tianyi: A tip for eliminating streaming delay when you are using iPad Webex and a PC at the same time. First open Webex, and start screen sharing, and open notebook app. This is when you typically start having time delay. Switch back to the Webex app without stopping sharing screen, and then switch back to notebook app, the delay disappears. I tried it twice, and it works.

  • Ali: I used a combination of WebEx Teams and WebEx Meeting. Each has its own features:

    + WebEx Teams: allows for creating a permanent space for the course, in which you can retain the content, messages, file, etc., and students can join easily without being re-invited for each lecture.

    + WebEx Meeting: has more features and an easier interface for screen/content sharing on iPads (and perhaps other tablets).

    Here’s how you can use the combination of WebEx Teams and WebEx Meeting for real-time delivery in class for (by a computer and an iPad)

    1- Start a meeting via WebEX Team on your computer. Look up the Meeting Number (9 digits).

    2- Launch WebEx Meeting on your iPad and join the meeting by entering the Meeting Number.

    3- On your iPad use the “Share” button share iPad's display with class. That allows sharing slides/note-taking apps (I use GoodNotes; it allows for importing slides and then annotating them). Student will see both the speaker and at the same time iPad’s display while writing/annotating in real-time.

    4- If you want to record the lectures: start recording the meeting (audio+video) via WebEx Team on your computer. You can save it on either WebEx Cloud or your computer (I prefer my computer since I want to post the lectures on MediaSite).

    5- At the end of a lecture, once you leave the meeting on WebEx Team, an mp4 file will be generated and saved (I save on my computer, and depending on the length of the lecture it can take a while; for an 80-minute lecture it took about 10 minutes).

    6- I upload the mp4 file on MediaSite.

    7- I link to the video on LMS (under content) for students to access. 

Alternative to Hovercam and Webex:

  • Ali: For pre-prerecording my first lecture I used "Explain Everything" app on iPad, and thought to share my experience with it. Main features: (1) It allows for importing slides as well as creating your own notes/notebooks. (2) It’s annotation features are standard and easy to use. (3) Voice recording is integrated and straightfoward. (4) It’s integrated with the usual cloud platforms (e.g., Box) and it's easy to import from and export to these platforms. (5) One feature that I like is that after recording, you can go back to any specific page or slide, and modify/edit/overwrite your narration/voice for that specific slide/page. (6) It exports in the mp4 format (300MB for my lecture). Post-processing (compression) for exporting the mp4 file took a while. Overall, I liked the output and the editing features.

Uploading/Hosting Video Files

  • Rich and Ali: In case RPI Mediasite or Webex Cloud cannot handle the traffic, Youtube is a reliable system designed to handle much larger traffic.

Homework/Exams

  • Agung: I have been asking my students to submit their work in a typed document (for a grad course). Then, I use SafeAssign on LMS to detect similarity.
  • Agung: Note on limited time exams: In a meeting with Kurt Anderson on Wednesday afternoon, there was an advice to be careful with short-time exams and assignments. Some students may experience or claim to experience low quality or loss of connectivity that prevents them from being able to complete the work in time. The advice from Kurt Anderson is to have such windows to be at least 6 hours long. Mahmood: I have 8 hours in my education plans for all courses.

Gradescope

  • Kyle: Gradescope is upgrading everyone to Gradescope Complete until June 30th (if you use it now, you should have got the e-mail). The test format looks similar to LMS, though I assume easier to use. For LITEC, I am definitely interested in the programming submission assignments.