Completed Lesson 1.3

Lesson 1.3 is 6 parts. It took a total of (nearly) 22 hours to complete. (I had to wait to complete the fifth mini-video because I could not get it done in time last week due to all of the work required to transfer my entire site over to a new server....)

Plus I put in 40 minutes to fix some bugs with lesson 1.2


Total time spent: 22.5 hrs.

I MOVED MY ENTIRE SITE TO A NEW SERVER

So, most of you probably won't have to deal with this.... but, since I am running my own video server... and since I have 35+ students downloading these videos simultaneously, during class time, there were issues with my previous server.

I was on what is called a "shared server"... which means that I share bandwidth with who-knows-how-many other web page clients. During peak internet hours there just was not enough bandwidth to handle the load.... My videos would freeze and that is not good in the format that I am using (students have to reload the entire lesson if a video freezes and fails to load.)

So I am going with the same company (www.fatcow.com) but am paying for a VPS server. Now I basically get 1/4th of a whole server to myself, with 1 TB (yes, 1 terabyte!) of bandwidth for www.colbysworld.net.

The downside: I have entered a whole new universe of webpage hosting. They have given me WAY too much control over the server and things have gotten way too complicated. Luckily they have GREAT customer support and they have guided me through the rough spots. After a couple days of FREAKING OUT and getting very lost and upset.... Everything is BACK ONLINE on the new server! Yes!

On Friday I took ONE CLASS into the computer lab (5th period) and the videos all downloaded fine. (That was not really peak internet hours though.)

Tomorrow (Tuesday) I am going to take my other for classes into the computer lab during 1st through 4th period to see if my move over to the new server was worth it.

I will post a brief update RIGHT HERE after tomorrow. Let's see what happens... (keeping fingers crossed for now.)

UPDATE: The new server worked great! Not a single student (out of 130 students) had a frozen or locked up video or had to "refresh" and start the lesson over today, and this was 1st through 4th period during some peak Internet traffic hours.

Time to set up new server: (previous two hours logged in plus at least another 8 hours

THIRD/FOURTH DAY IN CLASS

Well.... there were complications.

Videos were freezing.... during download.... Especially during 1st and 2nd period.

I contacted my webpage provider (fatcow.com) and we eventually determined that..... My account is on a SHARED server which is not always going to be adequate for 30+ students simultaneously downloading/streaming videos.... It becomes a big problem during "peak hours" of internet use... such as the middle of the weekday....

I have a back-up plan of saving a copy of my website on the SCHOOL NETWORK HARD DRIVE.... However, that has its own problems.... I won't get into the details.. but it involves re-coding my Flash files AND having TWO versions of my MUSE webpage files..... Two consequences would be that my online site and the local network site would not be IDENTICLE.... It would be near impossible to make identical changes simultaneously every time I made a change. The other consequence would be that it would require quite a bit MORE WORK for me to keep up with BOTH the Network and the Online versions.

I am going to try something else for a while.... And, yes, it costs more money....
I paid $13 for ONE MONTH of VSP hosting. Basically I will be getting 1/4th of a server instead of sharing one server with 30 or 50 other clients.

Here is an image of me transferring just my Unit 1 video files over to the NEW SITE. This whole process will take a couple hours.... I need to upload my .swf files, and my MUSE webpage files.

Fatcow.com will let me keep the same domain name.... they are in the process of transferring it as I type this... Hopefully it will be fully functional by tomorrow so I can retry with my Honors class.

Time = 2 hrs
Cost = $13

Second Day In Class - The Computer Lab

Today I took my Honors Physics class into the computer lab to complete Lecture 1.2. (34 students, after lunch, 5th period.) I was very nervous and excited.....

Remember that yesterday they completed Lecture 1.1 in the classroom as a class.

My overall, immediate evaluation of the day: (a) It WORKED and (b) It was successful.*

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I was worried that there might be a problem with 34 students simultaneously downloading 34 videos from my webpage provider. (Remember, only the day before I had a problem downloading a SINGLE version of the video.)  But today it was not a problem.

I was also worried that the headphone connections wouldn't work. But that was a piece of cake.

In fact, after the first 10 minutes of chaos most of the bumps/hiccups were worked-out (see below) and it was quite wonderful. The room was very quiet as all of the students wore headphones and had their eyes glued to either the computer screen or their notes. Not a single student "fell asleep" and all but one student COMPLETED THE ASSIGNMENT by the end of the period. It was a very nice day indeed. I am very happy.


Checklist for STUDENTS to bring:
(a) Their computer log-in and password info
(b) Headphones - I told the kids ahead of time to bring headphones. Many of them did. I also have a box of old headphones provided by the school. Some students had to use the old headphones.
(c) Printed Notes - the printed notes "1C" that they were using the day before (I handed out two of these today because the students forgot. However, I do not know how I intend to handle this in the future. Today I was just happy to get students in the lab to see if this would all work.)

Little bumps/hiccups and things that I had to help students with:
(a) Finding my webpage - some students needed help locating the correct URL. (It is printed at the bottom of the notes I gave them yesterday!)
(b) "Loading Video" - Students would stare at that screen for over a minute waiting for a video to load... I would notice this and walk over to them and show them that all they had to do was HOVER the mouse over the screen and click on the "play" button to get the video to play.
(c) FAILED TO PLAY - I had four students who's videos failed to play the first time. I showed them how to "refresh" the screen to reload the Flash file. All four of them worked fine after that.
(d) Screen Zoom - Many students did not know how to ZOOM the screen in/out. I showed them how to use CONTROL button on the keyboard and the MOUSE WHEEL to zoom in/out to make the video player bigger.
(e) SPACE - some students would type an extra space AFTER their answer.... thus getting an "incorrect" message and having to replay the mini-video.
(e) CFU Answer Range Robustness - On one answer the students needed to type "4" or "4 seconds" or "4 s" into the blank to get the correct answer.... But.... quite a few students typed in "4.0" and their answer was kicked back... they had to erroneously re-watch the mini-video. I need to add that answer into the possible correct answers in my Flash file. <== This is where it is helpful for me to try out these files in the computer lab before having students do them at home. I need to make sure MY answers will work.

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*Having said that... I don't know for sure HOW WELL THE STUDENTS ACTUALLY ABSORBED THE INFORMATION YET. That will take further evaluation. (I need to get them back into the classroom and have them doing practice problems, CFUs, quickwrites, etc... to see what they have learned from the video lecture experience.)  Remember that, LONG TERM, I want students to do most of these lectures AT HOME or in the LIBRARY and then they come in to class and we jump right in to USING the information.

First Day In Class - One Computer

Today was the FIRST DAY that students have seen one of my lessons...

Lesson 1.1 - I played it in my classroom on the projector in my Honors Physics class (34 students) 5th period (after lunch)

<PURPOSE>
I wanted to run the lesson during class because: (1) I wanted to see if I could get it to work, (2) I wanted to SHOW the students the details of running it... how to log on to my web page, how to find the lecture and get it to run, how to type in the password, how to print up notes and how the video player worked.... How to answer the CFU questions, and how to get past some of the oddities of the program (3) I wanted to see how the students reacted to the new format.

<BEFORE CLASS>
During lunch I was setting up the online video and making sure it was ready to go, with sound... I also taped up some black plastic over part of the windows in the back of the room because I know that it is harder to see the projector video than it is to see the video on the actual computer. (In particular, in lesson 1.1 there is a moment when a "dot" pops up on the screen.... and it is hard for some students to see unless the classroom is darker.)

Well, there was about 20 minutes of terror.... Because.... For some, unexplained reason... the video just.... FROZE in the middle of its playing. IT HAS NEVER DONE THAT BEFORE. (In the past I have gotten a video to either PLAY or NOT PLAY... but it has never FROZEN in the middle.)  I ran Task Manager and watched the Network download rate... and found that the video was downloading VERY SLOWLY... It was basically TRICKLING in. It seemed like the video player paused the video whenever it got to the point where it had not downloaded that part of the video yet. This was more than annoying because I would then press "play" later.... and it STILL was frozen. I tried 6 times AND IT WOULD NOT WORK. Part of my thoughts were that, for SOME REASON, the school's network connection just could not handle my download. Maybe there were a bunch of students in the library on those computers and that was bogging down the school's internet connection????

I was about to throw in the towel..... Then a colleague came in and I was showing her what was wrong.... and.... suddenly the Task Manager showed that the splash video loaded NORMALLY (7 seconds, quick spike of download) and then it played normally. Then the first mini video (Lecture 1.11) loaded and played just fine.... Whatever was causing the slow download 20 minutes ago had gone away!

<DURING CLASS>
I then tried it in my classroom 20 minutes later. The technology worked fine and pretty much as predicted. (Technology is a funny thing. Who knows WHY it just didn't work for awhile? One reason may have been my 8-year-old classroom computer or it's buggy network connection..... I know that it sometimes take my computer a LONG time just to upload a file to the school's server.)

HOW DID THE LECTURE WORK, CONCEPTUALLY?

I gave the students a quick introduction and explained what I was about to do. (I told them that this was an ongoing project and that I was trying to get my lectures online. I told them that I expected the entire project to take two full school years and that they were going to be getting SOME of their lectures in this format and SOME of their lectures in my older, hand-written format.)

They were quite impressed with the opening sequence and first mini-video.

When CFU questions popped up on the screen I randomly called students around the room and THEY told me what to type in. (There are 7 mini-videos for this particular lesson... So it pauses 7 times for students to type in answers.) I often had the CLASS tell me if all of the answers on the screen were correct or not. It worked out alright. When a student said "I don't know" I pointed out something to the effect of...."See... It's ok to have that answer, but just be aware that, in the computer lab tomorrow if you 'don't know' then you will have to watch the mini-video over again. It's ok, because I EXPECT all of you to have to re-watch SOME of the videos SOMETIMES. It's the way it works. If you can FOCUS and get the information the FIRST time, that's great! If not, that's 'ok' too... Just watch again and try to find the answer the second time. But.... be careful of not getting into a video-watching death-spiral of boredom.... where you just tune out and end up watching a video 5 times.... Eventually you just HAVE to pay attention and get the answer." (This is a compilation of replies that I gave over a two day period to various students who did not have an answer.)

FINDINGS:
After about 3-or-4 videos into the lecture it seemed that SOME STUDENTS WERE STARTING TO FIGHT BOREDOME. MANY of the students were fully awake and enjoying the entire video. Some of the students just "went with it" and some were definitely tuned out after awhile. One student had his head down on the desk by the 6th mini-video.

Part of it has to do with THE LIGHTS BEING TURNED OFF for almost the entire period... and the WINDOWS being blacked-out. Also, because the students did not have to copy notes from the screen, they did not have to DO as much. There is something to be said for having students move a pencil around on their paper in order to copy letters off of the screen. It gives their brain/pencil something to do. (But, just because they are copying stuff off of the screen DOES NOT MEAN THEY ARE LEARNING.)

This may NOT be the best format to give lectures. It was never intended to be shown, AS A CLASS. I would rate today's full day of lecture/notes as a "6" whereas my AVERAGE/NORMAL lecture is about a "7"

However, after all is said-and-done.... It may have been that I just was able to NOTICE the boredom of the students more easily because I myself was NOT HAVING TO FOCUS on "delivering the lecture." I was completely free to move around the classroom and watch the students. I could poke some of them awake, point at their notes, etc. THIS ALONE may be a reason to show lectures like this at times. It is less stress on the teacher AND the teacher can monitor students. (If you have 1 teacher and a classroom of students, and only one computer....DI instruction is definitely more effective than using my silly online lecture.... But this was not my intended format for these lectures.... and the online format has other strengths.)

<AFTER CLASS>
I had a couple of students come up to me and ask questions about the video production itself. Obviously it caught their attention. (I think it is always a bonus when a teacher does SOMETHING DIFFERENT than OTHER TEACHERS.) They wanted to know what software I used, how did I record animations, and how long did it take to produce.

My thoughts after the day was over: I was hoping that things would go better IN THE COMPUTER LAB when students were FORCED to answer every question on their own. They could not just sit idly by hoping that one of the other 33 students would save them....

Note: The very next day I did the SAME THING in my OTHER four classes in the morning.... Four College Prep Physics classes, 1st through 4th period, with 34 to 36 students per class. I wrote this blog entry and combined those findings. Those lectures had varying results, although, overall, the students seemed to be more "into" the lectures than my Honors students were the previous day. One period they were even CLAPPING after some of the mini-videos.

"How can I create/record online lectures?"

Welcome, fellow educators!

It is likely that this is your first visit to my BLOG about flipping the classroom.

 

Here is an excerpt from an email I received today:

“One thing I would really like to do is post online lectures; however, I have never done this before.  I was wondering if you are aware of any hardware/software that can be easily purchased/used to create/record online lectures in which I can write notes and record audio concurrently (similar to Khan Academy, but it doesn't have to be fancy).”

I am expecting to get more inquiries like this in the future. (For example: My school principal recently asked if I would like to present some of my ‘project’ to the staff at my school.)  Because of this I would like to have a spot to send fellow educators, like yourself, with a quick, introductory reply to this question... "How can I create/record online lectures?"

SHORT ANSWER: This is a two-part process: (1) First you need presentation software to create/deliver your lectures to the computer screen. In our school district we our lucky enough to have access to eInstruction Workspace which is included with our classroom Mobi. You could also use some combination of PowerPoint, MS Paint, Word, etc. (2) Then you need to record it and get it online. Something that I have found promising is a program called "Camtasia Studio" by TechSmith. It costs about $190 with the educator’s discount. It seems to be a worthwhile, all-around solution in a single package. With this software you can live record all or part of your computer screen with (or without) simultaneous voice recording. It also has video and voice editing software, with transitions and the ability to highlight/point to parts of the screen. It can also access your webcam, import PowerPoints, and produce a final product that can be uploaded to the Internet. Also, the teacher can insert QUIZ QUESTIONS within their videos that the student will answer ONLINE. It can be set up to have the answers EMAILED BACK to the teacher for grading. I am currently recommending this software for any teacher who wishes to live-record their lectures and post them online in the form of a video. Both Camtasia Studio and eInstruction Workspace are available as a 1-month free trial.

LONG ANSWER:

At the time of this blog entry I HAVE LITTLE EXPERIENCE WITH THE ENTIRE CAMTASIA STUDIO PROGRAM. At the moment, the ONLY reason I use Camtasia is for LIVE VIDEO RECORDING of my computer screen (with NO voice.)

The final product that I am putting online requires a relatively long and arduous production process that MOST TEACHERS would not find suitable for their own purposes. I want my MAIN lectures to be of the sort that I have posted so far: with interactive content, animations, high quality voice-overs, and a green-screen Alpha background that can play on a virtual chalkboard. These are taking roughly one hour of production time per one minute of actual video lecture. They require the use of a somewhat sophisticated set of tools (Adobe CreativeCloud) as well as some knowledge of programming and web-page creation. You can see that I have already spent hundreds of hours and almost a thousand dollars developing my online program for my Physics class and yet I have hardly completed the process. I have many months to go and probably thousands of hours of work. (For more details, please feel free to peruse the rest of my blog).

However, what I have seen of Camtasia Studeo is very promising AND I do PLAN on using that program to its full extent IN THE FUTURE. After I complete my MAIN set of lectures I will want to create SUPPLEMENTAL lectures/tutorials to post online. These will be shorter videos that might not be seen by all of my students and, as such, I will not want to put as much time into creating them. Camtasia Studio seems like a very realistic and workable solution for most teachers. At this time, however, since I have not yet used Camtasia Studio to its full extent, I am unable to provide any instruction or clarification on its use.

School Year 2013 Started

TODAY WAS THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL*
Busy.

This will be a short, catch-up entry.

The week prior to the first day of school... I completed video lesson 1.2

(a) Writing the Script - 205 minutes
(b) Voice Over recording/edit - 142 minutes
(c) Everything else (video recording rough, edit, Flash programming) - 22hr 35min

Total: 28 hrs 22min

(note: I did not actually ENTER this post on Aug 14, but that was the actual, FIRST DAY of school)