Lectures On Demand: delivering traditional lectures over the web
- 1. Lectures On DEmand: delivering traditional lectures over the Web. Marco Ronchetti Dip. Ingegneria e Scienza dell'Informazione Universit à di Trento Italy
- 2. Lecture available on slidedshare www.slideshare.com/ronchet But beware! Portability issue: some images missing because ppt was on a produced on a mac…
- 3. Video streaming "Streaming" refers to video that plays while you are connected to the internet. You don't need to wait for the entire file to download to your computer before you can start watching.
- 4. Bandwith One hour of video encoded at 300 kbit/s (this is a typical broadband video for 2005 and it's usually encoded in a 320×240 pixels window size) will be: (3,600 s · 300 kbit/s) / 8,388.608 = 128.7 MiB of storage Modem users will not be able to view the higher bitrate streams (i.e., Cable/DSL or MPEG2).
- 5. We can watch TV on the Internet Well, sort of…
- 6. Coming from two perspectives… Video on the Web Let's use it for teaching! E-learning Let's use video! Technology driven Goal driven
- 7. What a great idea! … really?
- 8. Teaching with videos? Old idea (pre-web) Lectures on TV (1960…) Lectures on Videotapes (1980…) COSTLY! Booooring… Unpractical Ineffective….
- 9. Teaching with videos? Don't do it! Unless there is something new…
- 10. Let's not be so pessimistic… What can we say from an e-learning perspective?
- 11. What do we use e-learning for? Help traditional students e.g. provide learning material on-line Support remote students Make some activity faster e.g. semi-automatically grading tests Change the way we teach Make it more collaborative Create a business Get new markets (e.g. Athabasca) Sell content (e.g. SCORM lectures)
- 12. Where can videos help? Help traditional students e.g. provide learning material on-line Support remote students Make some activity faster e.g. semi-automatically grading tests Change the way we teach Make it more collaborative Create a business - well, maybe… Get new markets (e.g. Athabasca) Sell content (e.g. SCORM lectures)
- 13. Traditional and remote students: how? Modern pedagogy says: Traditional lecturing is dead. The lecture model is under attack by people proposing learner centered learning E-learning is an opportunity for a change However…
- 14. Traditional and remote students: how? … what is going on in your classroom? At our place, we sometimes use a blended approach, much stuff is available through the net, but the classroom is still there… Can we make it any better, while the old paradigm still survives?
- 15. Breaking the space-temporal unit Can we free the student from spatial and temporal constraints? Classical solutions: Paper-based learning material (FernUniversitaet, OpenUniversity) VHS cassettes (and TV or satellite broadcasting) New solution: Webcast - but is it different?
- 16. Teaching with videos? COSTLY! Booooring… Unpractical Ineffective…. Well. Let's see…
- 17. But we just said videos are no good… … unless something new is there….
- 18. Our experience
- 19. We started in late 2003 Using e-presence: A software developed at KMDI at University of Toronto, Canada, mostly designed for synchronous webcasting of seminars Focus on remote interaction Today (the only?) PD software of this kind in sourceforge
- 20. e-presence today ePresence Interactive Media is an Open Source Web Conferencing and Webcasting system that delivers video and synchronized presentation media over the internet using multiple streaming formats for multiple platforms. University of Toronto, Canada http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=159579
- 21. What was different? COSTLY! -> lectures are there anyway… Booooring… -> lectures are not synthetic Unpractical Ineffective…. -> let's see…
- 22. Cognitive interface The main focus is on the projected slide , a clear voice is very important, the video carries additional information like gestures , and can show the environment just enough Navigation is possible
- 23. Logical Architecture Synchronous ( webcast ) Asynchronous ( On line , or download - podcast ) Asynchronous( CD - DVD )
- 24. Our experience Using e-presence we recorded in 1.5 years 9 university courses for a total of approx. 500 hours.
- 25. In our case (2004 data) Connections available to our students: 77% standard 56K analog modem 22% some kind of fast connection 7% ISDN (128:256 K) 15% ADSL (256K) 1% no connection at all. (but some of the students with slow connection have friends with ADSL)
- 26. Student feedback Enthusiastic . We were “forced” to extend the experiment! 75% anticipated using the system often or very often 5% 63% total 2 nd exam (23 stud.) 1 st exam (45 stud.) students who… 4% 6% … followed the course completely off-line 87% 51% … used the system to review at least one lecture
- 27. Advantages from student’s perspective Better time management: ability to recover lectures lost due to forced absence (illness, work or other time-frame incompatibility); ability to better organize their time , deciding not to be present at some lecture (elective absence); Better understanding review some critical point (cases of poor understanding of a section due to concentration drop, excessive speed in an explanation or intrinsic difficulty); ability to check the correctness of notes taken during a lecture;
- 28. Other advantages Miscellaneous perception by the student of a better service provided by the university ; support foreign (italian) students who might have difficulties with the Italian (English) language ; enrichment of the e-learning portfolio; possibility for the teacher to view himself; possibility to reuse lectures (across time, or in different contexts!)
- 29. We learned that: Synchronous webcasting is not important Alternative distribution channels are important Download CD/DVD
- 30. Our requirements the lectures should be easily browsed , with some form of indexing and a direct access to any time-location in the lecture; lectures should be visible on all major platforms (Windows/Linux/Macintosh) lectures should be available (in some form) also to students who do not have a large band Internet connection ;
- 31. Our requirements impact on lectures should be minimal; production costs should be minimal , so as to allow scaling the approach to most courses. Operations must be simple (low level skills!) Post-processing operations must be light (i.e. almost automatic), and not require much work
- 32. Our requirements Cognitive focus must be more controllable It must be also possible to use the blackboard! Set-up must be lightweight! agile and light setup easy transportability
- 33. Our requirements We tried to push our requirements in the e-presence development pipeline We ended up writing our own software: Lectures On Demand (Not because of NIS…)
- 34. Lode Supporto della didattica tradizionale
- 35. LODE: the user interface
- 37. Acquisition - User interface
- 38. System Architecture OnStage Web Server Video Streamer DVD Browser LODE acquisition
- 39. Portability (End user requirements) Windows: Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox Java and Javascript must be enabled QuickTime plug in Mac OsX: Mozilla Firefox Java and Javascript must be enabled QuickTime plug in Linux: No QuickTime plug in available! Partial support
- 40. The system 1st version: Windows - Delphi. Problem: maintainability! 2nd version: Linux version (2003: acquisition - Ubuntu, postprocessing Fedora) 3rd version: moved to a Windows XP (2005) to have a more familiar environment (!) . Acquisition and post processing can be done on the same machine. 4th version: client moved to Flash (!) Available ! But: not a product! Installation not simple!
- 41. New Flash version http://latemar.science.unitn.it/SSSW07/Gangemi-OntologyDesign/content/start.html
- 42. Lode - portability Supporto della didattica tradizionale Mac – Win - Linux Player MP4 (Video+audio,no slides)
- 43. Lode - portability Supporto della didattica tradizionale Symbian based phones (Nokia N70) Audio + slides +zoom
- 44. Is it really suitable for m-learning? 5 minute value: ability to use small fragments of time for learning Simplicity: limited display and input capabilities not practical to transpose a power-point presentation on a PDA; Context dependent information: location context ; the system knows the location where the learner resides and adjusts to it; temporal context; the system is aware of time dependent data; behavioral context ; the system monitors the activities performed by the learner and responds to them adjusting its behavior; interest specific context: the system modifies its behavior according to the user’s preferences.
- 45. Is it really suitable for m-learning? Yes, at the airport… Maybe, we are assessing students…
- 46. Extensions Additional material attached to a point in the lecture… Integration of (shared) annotation… Cut and sew to reflect TOPICS instead of temporal organization…
- 47. Use We recorded international Summer Schools in Europe and Asia Courses and events at University of Trento We gave the system to University of Innsbruck, Austria (not in use yet)
- 48. Assessing costs: Equipment (easy) Running costs (this is what kills projects!)
- 49. Assessing costs: initial costs: Software acquisition (almost) 0 Euro (QuickTime, Java, Javascript, Darwin Streaming Server, open source components, our sw + one non-free component) Hardware acquisition: SERVER 1000 Euro ACQUISITION STATION 1400-2400 Euro 1 Laptop (Euro 800-1500) 1 Digital Camera (Euro 400) 1 Radio Microphone (Euro 200-500)
- 50. Assessing costs: running costs setting up the system before lectures ( 10 min. ) running the system during the lecture ( 2 hours ) removing the system after lectures ( 5 minutes ) starting the post-processing: 5 minutes . The post processing would then go by itself for approx. 1 hours for producing a streams of 1 hour. ending the post-processing (uploading the video on the web site, producing the master CD): 15 minutes . 35 minutes extra work for a 2 hours lecture Network ?
- 51. Today: many other similar systems EyA Videolectures.net Webinars of various sorts …
- 52. Some examples: http://www.sciencelive.org/component/option,com_mediadb/task,play/idstr,CU-CSF-PC07-05_DarwinCorrespondence/vv,-2/Itemid,26Videolectures.net http://sdu.ictp.it/eya/about/examples/roomD_2007.04.13_10.00-10.59/index.html http://videolectures.net/iswc07_pell_nlpsw/ http://epresence.kmdi.toronto.edu/Presentation/16 http://epresence.kmdi.toronto.edu/Presentation/193
- 55. Why do you need the video ? Presence feeling Video carries useful information (e.g. gesture) Video carries essential information (e.g. blackboard!) => Video or not, operator or not
- 56. Why do you need the slides ? Slides carry essential information Slides are only a help for the teacher You need more than the slides… (e.g. videos, live demos etc) Capture screen (camtasia-like)? Capture video signal (KMI - OU) ?
- 57. How important is format ? Browser independence? Intranet solutions General audience Network independence? Various resolutions Download Other means (DVD…) Device independence? Mobile learning
- 58. How important is transportability ? Higly optimized static settings? Light equipment?
- 59. Do you need temporal markers ? To facilitate navigation? I guess yes, but… How do you create them? (image recognition?)
- 60. Do you want to users to be able to give feedback/interaction ? Lecture grading General annotation Temporally marked annotation Real time interaction (Synchronous events)
- 61. Can you interfere with the teacher? Many speakers do not like to be recorded They do not want to be disturbed They do not want to adapt (ppt vs latex, macros in ppt, blackboard?)
- 62. When you'll have lots of stuff… How will the users find their own way through? Semantic marking Access portal User evaluation/ranking Summaries Keywords Thematic catalogues
- 63. Be clear! Define your goals Define your costs Define your process
- 64. Can we do more? Scenario: Thousands of recorded lectures. Can we dig in them to extract material for (less formal) learning?
- 65. Needle - search results
- 66. Needle - architecture ASR Multimodal search!
- 67. Needle - ASR We used 2 ASR: A) a speaker independent research system, used for transcriptions of the Italian parliament B) a commercial (dictation) system A) gave 60% word accuracy on sample B) gave 76,6% word accuracy (after speaker training, in simulated environment) Why so bad? Mike, but not only…
- 68. Needle - Vocabulary Research system vocabulary contained 62,879 words Manual transcription contained 702 terms - 57 not present in vocabulary 36 were technical terms Rest was english or spanish words, company names, other minor stuff (re-…, diminutives). Language model is important! We took Java books (11,443 terms before stemming - added to the vocabulary and decreased the unrecognized words from 8% to 3%)
- 69. ASR - is it good? For information retrieval - yes. Rare false positive on interesting domain!
- 70. Questions Is it useful? Is it effective?
- 71. Scenario 100% accurate transcription (manually corrected) Goal: extract some info from a 2 hour lecture in half of the time… Assess whether the tool could reduce the learning time and help students in their learning task: we do not aim at claiming or proving that a course delivery mode is better than the other. Comparing delivery modes (e.g. distance learning with traditional classroom-based instruction) (Sener 2005) for the purpose of establishing the superiority of one delivery mode over another is specious, irrelevant and counterproductive because there is not an uniformity of practice.
- 72. Experiment 68 students, after 20 hours of a 50 hour Java course. Group A: LODE Group B: NEEDLE
- 73. Experiment Pre-Test: 5 questions, 5 minutes LODE group: 70 minutes for the lecture, plus 24 minutes for the post-test (8 questions): total 94 minutes to accomplish the task NEEDLE group: 48 minutes total for responding to the same 8 questions (50% of the time)
- 74. Pre-test results
- 75. Test results
- 76. Analysis In the subset of questions, which require students to have a complete understanding of a part of the lecture both groups performed in the same way. In answering those questions that also required some reasoning about concepts , group LODE – who had listened to the entire lecture – performed better. In the questions where the students where asked to provide the right definition for a concept group NEEDLE performed better.
- 77. Further investigations Multivariate regression: no significant results Clustering techniques Indication that some feature seem to be present - investigation is still on its way
- 78. Conclusion NEEDLE tool is more geared towards information finding than towards actual learning. A similar pattern could be reasonably expected in a similar experiment performed by reading some assigned material versus searching quick answer with Google. However, our finding seems to show that Needle works very well as a tool for extracting information from a video source.