Tag: external (Page 6 of 11)

Into the unknown – part 1

March 17, 2020 / Tom Langston / 1 Comment

Just like Elsa being called by unseen voices into an adventure as yet undefined (for those that don’t know, this is a reference to Frozen 2 and Elsa’s new and improved version of Let it go), Digifest 2020 or #digifest20, if you want to track it on social media, opens its doors and I step into the unknown, exciting event hosted by Jisc. Digifest is new to me, but to those that have been before it offers innovation, inspiration and opportunity.

This two day conference that Jisc organise every year at the Birmingham ICC is a window into the latest ideas that help create and shape fantastic innovations in learning and teaching.

The conference opened with, what would turn out to be, a controversial keynote from Jonah Stillman (@jonah.stillman on instagram), firstly outlining how the generations were categorised and then with a look into Gen Z and their approach to learning. It was an interesting insight into how Gen Z are not like the Millenials (who started in 1980!) and are being told they are winners and losers, it’s not about the taking part anymore, it’s about the winning. This, he argues, will be a potential hurdle through their learning and into the world of work as they are not able to collaborate (while admitting this was a wide generalisation).

For me the biggest take away was that you can’t wow Gen Z with technology. They quickly investigate and analyse a tool and quickly decide if it is useful or redundant. Where the older generations would see themselves as technology inept and the problem is with them, the Gen Z learner sees it as a problem with the product and that it either works for them or doesn’t.

We are all at that point where we have technology or using technology in some way as part of our lives, but for Gen Z there is the expectation it is there. It should be integrated and seamless to their experiences. Jonah Stillman expanded on this with the concept of Weconomists. The simplest example of this is Uber, but it is the shared economy. If you need something there will be someone available that can offer that service. How that fits educationally is going to be the next big sticking point. At worst we have the idea of buying essays, but how can we turn this into a positive? How can the shared economy of learning be expanded?

For me it fits into the idea that was presented by Rachel Hall (@rachela_hall on Twitter) at the next panel “Changing the world of work in the digital age” and how The Guardian has focused their future on the digital output of their journalists. They have looked at how people access the news depending on the time of the day. Headlines in the morning, just short sharp bite sized pieces of information that people can choose to discover on their commute to work. At lunch a more in depth article that expands on their day while they have a larger chunk of time to be critical of the stories that hold the most interest to them. By the evening they are looking at more lighthearted content that relates to their social experiences and lifestyle. This for me presents one potential solution to the shared economy, where students can share their stories and knowledge. They each process that information differently but if they can help interpret that to their fellow learners they will adapt the material and help reframe learning in a way that makes it accessible to everyone.

Just from the two opening sessions of this year’s Digifest, I feel inspired to think about my own practice and how as an educator I am trying to predict what is going to be useful for students in their learning. I am now more aware than ever that I am using technology in such a different way to that of the students at the university. The change we are seeing should not be seen as a problem. It should be seen as an opportunity, while we are taking a step into the unknown (just like Elsa!). We can take the challenge and channel our current students desire to learn and look at how we facilitate that desire in a way that may not be comfortable to us.

Stay tuned for Part 2, when I will focus on academics who are facing this challenge of a student body that potentially knows more than they do in terms of technology!

All the notes taken at #digifest20 can be found on Twitter @TelPortsmouth

Guest Blogger: Emma Duke-Williams – On changing from academic to educational Technologist

March 16, 2020 / Emma Duke-Williams / 0 Comments

Some of you may remember me – I spent about 16 years at Portsmouth, lecturing in the School of Computing. I’ve now moved to be an Educational Technologist in Dundee University, working as part of a central team. In many ways it seems only yesterday that I left; in reality, it has been more than four years!

The change wasn’t entirely planned. I moved to Scotland for personal reasons and was therefore looking for a job. A combination of 16 years of lecturing (and a few more of school teaching before that) and a lack of a PhD made me decide that I didn’t want to lecture again. However, I did like the contact I had had with staff and students at Portsmouth, so the opportunity of a sideways jump appealed. Those who knew me at Portsmouth will remember that IT to support learning was a key area of interest for me. Indeed, my PGCE in the 80s had included “Computing in the Primary Curriculum” – those were the days of BBC Bs, Granny’s Garden and the Domesday project!

While at Portsmouth I was keen to experiment, and no doubt I drove some in the eLearning team mad with my “why won’t it do …” questions – but I also was free to experiment to see whether something could be done, and students generally went along with my ideas.

All of that experience has really helped me here! I understand those wanting to push a tool to its limits, to get it to work for the way they want to teach, and that it’s rare to find ‘one size fits all’ solution. That aspect of my role is fun, challenging, and forces me to think about both tools and pedagogic practice.

However, the greater challenge is supporting all staff to have a good understanding of the tools we have, the functionality on offer, while helping staff decide what’s really needed for their students. When teaching I came across students who found aspects of the subject hard, or didn’t understand why they had to do various things. Academics are no different!

Do I miss teaching? Not often. I do miss the buzz of enthusiastic students, but I don’t miss the pile of marking – but I’d find this role 100 times harder, had I not had that experience of being on ‘the other side’.

Peermark – a tool for group feedback.

March 9, 2020 / Tom Langston / 0 Comments

Recently Coventry University released a new plugin for Moodle around the idea of group and peer feedback. A colleague highlighted the new tool to me and at first glance I thought it looked like a promising solution to one of the requirements many academics have while running group work: the ability for students to score the contribution of individuals within the group and provide either public or anonymous feedback to group members.

Currently Moodle provides various options to support group work and peer learning, because Moodle HQ realises that these approaches hold an important place in the arsenal of many academics. Firstly, Moodle provides a generic framework for creating groups – these can then be allocated to an activity (such as discussion boards, wikis or group assignment submissions).

Secondly, and with a greater focus on the use of peer learning, Moodle provides the Workshop tool.

While groups can be added and used within the Workshop, the idea is predominantly that students add a submission. The submission is then allocated to a specified number of their peers, who then grade and provide feedback on it.

If you haven’t used the Workshop tool in anger, here is a quick overview of how to use it as a peer-assessment tool:

All students submit their work (traditionally this will be an essay, but it could be work in some other format).
The work is allocated to the other students. This can be scheduled and automated if required.
Every student marks the assessments they have been given (academics can also provide feedback, although this is not a requirement).
Each student receives a final grade for the submission and a grade for their ability to assess the work (academics can overwrite grades should they feel the process has proven unfair).

This tool provides students a fantastic opportunity to reflect on their own writing and work while comparing it to that of their peers. However, it does not allow for a group to provide anonymous feedback to their peers on projects. To do this academics currently have to find solutions outside of Moodle. The most notable option for this is TeamMates. TeamMates allows groups to feedback on the overall project work and then score the engagement of the rest of the team throughout the project.

We now have a new Moodle-based solution! Peerwork, created by Coventry University, is an integration with Moodle that provides a peer feedback option for group work. You can learn more about this approach from the video they have produced:

While working through Peermark, I was really impressed with its simplicity of set-up and use. I created the framework as an academic, but also completed the process as a student. Using multiple test accounts, I was able to understand how the process would work from both sides and see how you can adjust the overall grade given to a group though the peer reviews on the work.

The only criticism was really just my understanding of what the tool did (so not really a criticism of the system). When I uploaded a document as a student it cascaded it to each other members of the group. Each student does not need to upload a file, it is targeting the students for feedback on their peers and how the group worked throughout a project. The upload was almost a secondary consideration to the process.

Peermark is not the Workshop reimagined. They are two very different tools that serve a specific purpose.

The Workshop facilitates a student writing a piece of work, submitting it and other students provide feedback and evaluation of that work.

Peermark allows groups to discuss, rank and analyse how the entire team worked together over the course of the project. The work is created by the team for evaluation by the academic but the feedback given by the group on each other member will directly affect the shared grade of the team.

Peermark is currently on a test installation of Moodle.

If you would like a demonstration to see whether it would fit your need, please contact tom.langston@port.ac.uk

Image taken from Unsplash :John Schnobrich
John Schnobrich

Amand standing behind a handheld video camera

Guest Blogger: Jonny Bell – Video content as learning objects – Capturing more than just the lecture

March 2, 2020 / Jonny Bell / 0 Comments

We often advise lecturers to use more interesting content on their Moodle sites, rather than just lecture slides, PDFs and so on, but what does that mean in practice and how can lecturers facilitate this and manage their busy schedules?

Videos are an easy way to make sites more visually appealing and are more likely to engage students. We can use videos in two ways: either

(i) source already-created videos, via sites such as Youtube or Box of Broadcasts.

(ii) can create our own.

As an amateur videographer outside of work this is an area I am very interested in. During my time working in the Institute of Criminal Justice Studies I had the chance to interview some extraordinary characters, including government advisers on how to deal with terrorist attacks and ex-convicts who have been successfully rehabilitated into society.

These short interviews provided much better value to students than watching a rerun of a longer lecture. In fact, studies show that the length of the video directly links to how much of the content the student will watch. Whilst this study looks at MOOCs, I strongly believe we can translate this to a Higher Education environment also.

With the introduction of H5P functionality within Moodle we can make these videos interactive and make sure students answer questions to solidify the knowledge they’ve gained by watching them.

The generation of students coming through now have grown up on Youtube and Netflix, and academics are keen to tap into that mindset to provide videos of educational value. There’s various different styles of video to choose from, and I have personally been involved in 7 different ones.

In my current job in the Science and Health Faculty there has been a lot of scope to provide instructional or demonstration videos for specific pieces of equipment in laboratories, for example. Students can watch these videos outside of class, and it saves valuable lab time: students can get on with their work straight away rather than having to get to grips with the equipment.

I think videos also provide a vital link on Distance Learning courses: it’s often a great way for students to connect with the course, especially if the lecturer is happy to do bits to camera. It can humanise the experience if they can see who is teaching them.

Students want to feel they get value for money and just providing Powerpoints and PDFs isn’t enough these days. By creating our own in-house videos the students get an almost personalised learning experience. When I started in the Faculty there was some basic camera equipment, but I was able to purchase a higher-spec camera, lapel mics and some small studio lights via senior management. This means that I’m mobile and can go to the lecturer or a location they wish, rather than have everyone go to a dedicated filming space.

Projects currently in the pipeline are a “TV” style video with student presenters introducing pieces about their specific course, including how to present their poster assessment in front of a panel on a Pharmacy course; this will be invaluable for first-year students.

Looking to the future there have already been requests for my services on field trips for geography-type courses. This means we can increase the accessibility of these courses for students who, for various reasons, might be unable to get onto these trips. Having a short video on how to conduct experiments on soil, for example, means these students will have a similar experience to those who go on the trips. Ultimately, as an institution, we should be striving for all of our students to have consistent learning experiences and by creating short videos we can go some way to achieving that.

Credit Image: Photo by Seth Doyle on Unsplash

Using animated videos to engage learners

February 10, 2020 / Becky Holman / 2 Comments

Sometimes we have a subject that we want to get across that can be tricky to make interesting. Giving students (or indeed anyone) some text, audio or PowerPoint slides can often mean that interest in the subject matter is quickly lost and information is not properly taken in. Studies have shown that students tend to find information in the form of videos far easier to absorb, and when this comes in the form of a snappy, animated video it instantly becomes dynamic and engaging.

As we know, hiring a videographer is an expensive and time consuming business, so I decided to look for a viable alternative. Previously, I have used a variety of online animation tools, that although they were easy to use and, most importantly, free, I felt that we could do better. I wanted to find a tool that was not only cost effective, but could easily create a professional looking video. I had a look in my mind already as to the type of animation tool I was looking for, I wanted these videos to look contemporary and fun so that we could apply the tool to a variety of subjects and engage viewers of different backgrounds, and levels of study. I didn’t want to disengage a viewer immediately by having a video look too ‘cartoony’. Eventually, I came across Vyond.

What is Vyond?

Vyond (previously known as GoAnimate) is a cloud based video platform that anyone can use to create visually engaging, animated videos. Vyond provides the user with thousands of pre-made templates and props royalty free-music and characters which you can use to create dynamic content that keeps your viewers attention.

How can using Vyond help me?

As I mentioned earlier, studies have shown that using a short, animated videos can increase students in higher education capability of understanding difficult subject matter, whilst staying engaged with the content provided. Vyond provides many different tools to assist you with making a fantastic looking video, whether it be purely for information or to get a particular subject matter across.

Resources – Use Vyond’s asset bank of thousands of pre-made props, templates and characters to enrich your video.
Animation – You can animate pretty much everything in Vyond, to the way a character looks, to how a slide exits the scene. It all comes down to your creativity!
Adding a voice – Upload an audio file that you have recorded to either add a voiceover or character dialogue. If you give a character a voice, you can also have the character lip sync to the track!
Music and sound effects – Vyond offers lots of royalty-free music and sound effects for you to use, but you can still upload your own if you wish.
Exporting and sharing – Once you’re ready to share your video, you can either download it and upload it somwhere (for instance YouTube), embed it or simply use the shareable link provided.

Tips for making a great video

Creating a video with Vyond is easy (honestly!), but you still need to put some thought into your project. Here are three tips to get you started…

Start off by creating a storyboard – You should already have a relatively good idea of what you want your video to look like and the message you need to get across. Start off by putting those ideas down on paper, either by brainstorming or making a storyboard.
Try and keep videos no longer than 5 minutes – Viewers are more likely to retain information when videos are short and concise. The perfect time has been shown to be no longer than 2 minutes, however if you need a bit longer then try not to go over 5 minutes! This can be tricky, but it’s also where step one comes in handy, so you can plan your video and make it more concise.
Take the time to record your narrative – Creating a colourful, animated video means that trying to provide dialogue via on screen text can be really distracting and overwhelming. Of course we need to include captions for accessibility, but try and take the time to record your script and then add text only at key points of the video.

Here’s one I made earlier!

I made the below video for our TEL advent calendar to showcase what Vyond can do, so take a look!

https://youtu.be/5E-XVOAOSeQ

How can I try it out?

Anyone can sign up for a two week trial via Vyond’s website and try it out themselves. After that you will be required to purchase a license. You can find out more about the packages available on Vyond’s site.

Already using Vyond or something similar – let us know!

We would love to hear from you if you are already using Vyond or a similar tool to create animations. You can feedback to us in the comment box below.

Image credit: Photo created using character templates within Vyond’s asset bank – https://www.vyond.com/

Different coloured wall lights spelling out the word google

Guest Blogger: James Lenthall – Google Apps Script

January 20, 2020 / James Lenthall / 0 Comments

Google Apps Script (GAS) is an extension for some Google Suite applications that allow for customisation. It could be compared to macros for Office or ExtendScript for Adobe. My experience of using it is mostly through Google Sheets so that’ll be my focus.

It’s incredibly versatile allowing you to read and write data, create your own functions, menus, pop ups, side bars and even entire web sites. This combined with integration that’s readily available with other Google services makes for an impressive toolkit for creating solutions for a wide range of tasks.

Why should you use it? Being cloud based with the ability to save versions as you work there’s no worry about losing anything, plus you can edit from anywhere. If you regularly do repetitive tasks, part of, or perhaps the entire task could be automated. Google forms don’t have the functionality you’re after? Build your own that can also populate a sheet. Trying to work out post dates? A custom function can automate that based on another cell’s data. Perhaps the most compelling reason to give it a try, taken from “7 Reasons Why Google Apps Script is a Great First Programming Language to Learn”; there’s no setup required and it’s completely free.

If you are already familiar with front end web development then it is quick and easy to pick up. GAS is entirely written in JavaScript. It’s very well documented so finding your way around is easy. There’s also sites such as Stack Overflow for assistance as more often than not, someone else has already asked the question you have.

I know there have been other cases in the University where it has been used to email all users on a spreadsheet or simply whichever row you’re on. Personally, as a follower of Don’t Repeat Yourself (DRY) principles I use GAS or similar tools anytime I have a repetitive task.

To give a very specific case where publishing a Google Sheet as a web application has helped. In our team as we handle all the drop boxes, instead of having administrators update a spreadsheet and send us emails of changes each time or not at all, we have them fill out a form and overnight the developers are sent a single email with a list of requests.

If you’re ever thinking “there’s got to be a better way,” Apps Script might be your answer.

If this is something you’re interested in and want to find out more, email: james.lenthall@port.ac.uk

Feature image: Photo by Arthur Osipyan on Unsplash

Is it time to give doodling an image makeover?

December 2, 2019 / Marie Kendall-Waters / 1 Comment

Like the majority of people, I’m a doodler, whether I’m chatting on the phone, writing my list of food shopping for the week or at a meeting at work, if I have a pen and paper in hand there will be doodles. Some of my doodles are just swirls and rough shapes and some have given me inspiration for other creative ideas which I have put into practice. I even follow Mr Doodle on Instagram as I find the art of doodling fascinating! (If you’ve not heard of him then check him out!)

When we think of doodles, they are normally made up of squiggles, they are rough drawings that are made absent-mindely. When I think back to school days, doodling was often seen as a bad thing in class, students are perceived as not paying attention if they are seen doodling. However, what if doodling wasn’t the distraction we all thought it to be but actually had real cognitive benefits that perhaps could aid concentration and memory?

The importance of doodling – aren’t they just squiggles?

The need to draw is hardwired into the human brain. From our first scribbles at infancy to industry; doodles to explain complex theories and equations from scientists and mathematicians. In fact, it could be argued that graphic images predates verbal communication, when we think of parietal art or cave drawings by our primitive ancestors. Doodling can help communicate meanings to our ideas by giving them visual representations. When we put pen to paper, we open up our hearts to ideas, insights and inspirations.

Diane Bleck, an idea catcher and co-founder of the Doodle Institute, has taken doodling a step further and is on a mission to unlock insights, inspiration and ideas for large and small companies and schools through doodles. Diane shows how doodles can be used as a tool for strategic thinking, brainstorming and business planning. It can also be used for health and healing to relieve stress.

Visuals at Work – Episode 12: Brainstorming Mind Map
https://youtu.be/9pG_izfsgdU

How can we use doodles in the context of education and learning?

Bleck explains how doodles can be used for brainstorming and business planning, in the context of a lecture, doodles or sketches could be used for visual note-taking. Visual note-taking is a way to synthesize information; carve out the most important points and use images to convey the message simply and effectively. Studies show that note-taking enables recall and the synthesis of new information. Doodling can significantly increase the amount of retained information, according to a 2009 study. It says that even if doodling is not intentionally related to the listening task, more recall occurs. If you would like to know more about retrieval practice, check out Achieving Mastery – How Important is Practice in Learning?

Doodling put into practice

Instructional coaches, Shelley Paul and Jill Gough explored how ‘doodling while taking notes could improve memory and concept retention’ [1] in class. Before approaching their academics about using the idea of doodling, Paul tested out this theory by sketching her notes from a 2 day conference; ‘it causes you to listen on a different level’ [2]. By the end of the conference Paul found that her drawings had improved and she was able to remember the information that was communicated from the conference just by looking at her sketches. These experiences convinced Paul and Gough that ‘something powerful happens when auditory learning is transposed into images’[3]. In fact, ‘when ideas and related concepts can be encapsulated in an image, the brain remembers the information associated with that image’[4] and therefore aids memory and learning.

Doodle or not to doodle? There’s no wrong way!

We know as educators and from our experiences that we all learn in very different ways, some people are more focused when they are being creative. Doodling may help unleash our creative sides when learning and help us to retain new information and keep us focused. Who’s to say it’s a bad thing if it works? Doodling worked for children’s author; Dave Pilkey!

Like all new skills, or even old ones which we haven’t used for a while, we don’t know how effective they will be until we put them into practice – maybe this is something you could trial out with your students or yourselves the next time you attend a conference! I do think doodling does need an image makeover as it can lead to really engaging and imaginative creativity, especially in education!

I’ll leave you with this amazing ‘doodle’ by RSA Animate of a talk ’Changing Education Paradigms’ given by Sir Ken Robinson – world-renowned education and creativity expert, which shows how ‘doodling’ really can aid concentration and memory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDZFcDGpL4U

References:

[1]Katrina Schwartz, 2015: https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/39941/making-learning-visible-doodling-helps-memories-stick

[2]Jill Gough, 2015: https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/39941/making-learning-visible-doodling-helps-memories-stick

[3]Katrina Schwartz, 2015: https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/39941/making-learning-visible-doodling-helps-memories-stick

[4]Katrina Schwartz, 2015: https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/39941/making-learning-visible-doodling-helps-memories-stick</P

Credit image: Photo by Lucas Lenzi on Unsplash

pink painted finger nails going to tap a mobile phone which is laying down an a surface

Three Useful Apps for Teaching/Learning

November 18, 2019 / Andy Taggart / 0 Comments

In this blog, I want to introduce a couple of apps that could be very useful additions to any lecturers’ teaching toolbox.

Screencastify

The first is Screencastify. Screencastify is a lightweight screen recorder that can be used to capture your desktop and webcam allowing you to create videos that can be uploaded directly to YouTube and, at the same time, saved to your Google Drive. Being a Chrome extension means that there is no heavy weight software to download and it can also be used offline. There is a free version that limits the number of videos you can make to 50 per month with a maximum length of 10 minutes per video. However, you can upgrade to a paid for version, approximately £20 (it comes priced in dollars), which has no such limits.

Anyway, enough reading, here is a short demo of Screencastify in action

https://youtu.be/VwU-kwFzVHk

It does lack the functionality of a product like Camtasia, but if all you need is a quick easy screen recording it is well worth a go. You can also keep the videos on YouTube private by setting them to unlisted so they cannot be found in searches or as recommendations, students would just need the URL which can be made available via your Moodle pages.

Once you’ve made your video using Screencastify, you can have it as a stand alone resource available via YouTube or you could use it to produce an enhanced learning object by combining it with Adobe Spark.

I can see this having a variety of uses from giving video/audio feedback to forming part of a set of flipped learning sessions.

Screencast-O-Matic

An alternative to Screencastify is Screencast-O-Matic. As with Screencastify, this app also comes in free and licensed versions. The free version of Screencast-O-Mantic will record videos of 15 minutes which can then be saved as MP4 files, this version also comes with some limited editing functionality but does require a software download and does not work quite as seamlessly with YouTube or Google Drive.

Brainscape

The third app, useful as a revision aid, is Brainscape . Brainscape is an online flashcard system, you can either create your own flashcards or use a pre-made set. Unlike other ready made flashcard systems I’ve seen, Brainscape does have resources suitable for HE and not just in traditional academic disciplines. This system is free (though you can pay to release a larger number of cards) and can be accessed through your Google account.

As students work through the set of cards, they can rate how confident they are in their knowledge and understanding. Staff can create classes to which they can invite students, thus allowing you to view how many cards the students used and how they themselves rate their learning.

Brainscape says that its system is grounded in proven techniques that help improve learning and understanding. Not having used this particular platform myself with learners I can’t comment on the veracity of the claims made but as flashcards are a popular learning technique this online system is worth looking at, especially given the range of topics it covers.

Credit Image: Photo by Rob Hampson on Unsplash

boy singing on microphone with pop filter

Accessibility: Investigating Automatic Media Transcription

November 4, 2019 / Rich Heath / 0 Comments

Background

Accessibility is now an important aspect of digital learning. We need to take accessibility seriously both to satisfy the needs of an increasingly diverse student body and the requirements recently brought into law. Of course, digital learning often encompasses a wide variety of resources in a range of media. The challenge of bringing all these resources in line with regulations is considerable, both on a technical and organisational level. Fortunately technology can help to ease the burden, with a number of integrations available to help examine and fix content-related accessibility issues.

One particularly large challenge, and one that is particularly helped by the use of technology, is video. While it is possible to watch and transcribe a video manually, when faced with a library of nearly 8000 hours of video, the challenge becomes insurmountable! This is where technology can step in: it can automate the process and reduce the number of person-hours required.

For quite some time, YouTube has been able to automatically caption videos. In the past, however, the transcriptions produced by the algorithms have often been the subject of ridicule for the sometimes bizarre and hilarious interpretations. Thankfully things have moved on considerably, with increasingly advanced AI and machine learning helping to increase the reliability of computer transcription.

For the majority of our video content, we rely upon a home-spun system composed of a Wowza Streaming Media server and a custom-built front-end to manage content and metadata. While this system has the facility to allow subtitles to be added, it does not feature any way to automate the process of creating transcriptions. For this reason, we are currently investigating our options, with a view to either hosting our video content elsewhere or improving our current provision by implementing auto-transcription facilities.

The contenders

We have been investigating a few services to judge the accuracy of the transcription. We have tried each service with the same videos to see how accurately they can transcribe a variety of media content. Below are some details of three services we are currently examining.

Mozilla Deepspeech

An open-source option that can be run on-premises, Deepspeech requires a certain amount of technical skill in deploying and managing Linux servers. Being open-source and community driven, the more effort you put in, the better the output will be. It allows you to train your own neural network to increase the accuracy of transcriptions, so theoretically it would be possible to improve your transcription accuracy, although it may require a large investment of time and effort. As we are simply testing the out-of-box abilities, we have used the default models provided by the developers.

Google Speech to Text Engine

This is an API made available through the Google Cloud Platform. The service itself is used by YouTube to provide auto-transcriptions of uploaded videos. While using it through YouTube is free at the point of upload, utilising the API in your own projects can cause costs to rack up quickly (and remember that we have 8000 hours of video sitting on our servers, waiting to be transcribed). The pricing options are transparent, however, so we can easily calculate the cost of transcribing all of our existing content.

Amazon Transcribe

This cloud service is utilized by Amazon’s virtual assistant “Alexa” and works in a similar way to Google’s offering, with transcription charged based upon the number of seconds of content transcribed. The service is used by the content capture service Echo 360 to transcribe material. By our rough calculations, transcribing our 8000 hours of content through Amazon would be a little cheaper than through Google.

The results

Here are some example transcriptions of one short piece of video content.

Mozilla Deepspeech

so wee al seend apisode of the dragon tf dend where the ontroprenel holks in with a really great idea good looking numbers the dragons e recing out their hands and then one of the dragons pipes up let see your contract and os soddenly ontrepenelox exposed because they thought they had a contra they don’t what they have iser some verbal understanding your colercial contracts are really important to you business mey should be kept clear concise so the point to add value when seeking in bestment wor in ed if you come to sellin a business also commercial contracts areningportant to the void conslote because both sides of the contract should now wot their obligations are a more their rights are

Google Speech to Text (through youtube)

so we’ve all seen episodes of the Dragons Den where the entrepreneur walks in with a really great idea good-looking numbers the Dragons are eating out their hands and then one of the Dragons pipes up let’s see your contract and all the sudden the entrepreneur looks exposed because they thought they had a contract they don’t what they have is a some verbal understanding your commercial contracts are really important to your business they should be kept clear concise to the point to add value when seeking investment or indeed if you come to sell the business also commercial contracts are really important to avoid conflict because both sides of the contract should know what their obligations are and what their rights are

Amazon Transcribe

So we’ve all seen episodes of the Dragon’s Den, where the entrepreneur walks in with a really great idea, good looking numbers that dragons reaching out their hands. And then one of the dragons pipes up. Let’s see your contract over something. The entrepreneur let’s exposed because they thought they had a contract. They don’t. What they have is a some verbal understanding your commercial contracts of really important to your business. They should be kept clear, concise to the point. Add value when seeking investment, or indeed, if you come to sell the business. Also, commercial contracts are really important to avoid conflict because both sides of the contract should know what their obligations are, what their rights on.

Conclusion

As you can see from the output above, while the Mozilla software makes a good guess at a lot of the content, it also gets confused in other parts, inventing new words along the way and joining others together to form a rather useless text that does not represent what has been said at all well. I’m sure its abilities will improve as more time is spent by the community training the neural network. However, Google and Amazon clearly have the upper hand – which is not surprising, given their extensive user base and resources.

While Amazon Transcribe makes a very good attempt, even adding punctuation where it predicts it should appear, it is not 100% accurate in this case. Some words are mis-interpreted and others are missing. However, in the main, the words that are confused are not essential to the understanding of the video.

Google Speech to Text makes the best attempt at transcribing the video, getting all words 100% correct, and even adding capital letters for proper nouns that it clearly recognises. There are options to insert punctuation when using the API, but this feature is not available in the YouTube conversion process.

From this (preliminary and admittedly small) test, it seems you get what you pay for: the most expensive service is the most accurate and the cheapest is the least accurate. Also, the headline cost of using Google Speech to Text on 8000 hours of video is not necessarily accurate. We need to remember that not all of this content is actively used: this is an accumulation of 8 years of content, and it’s possible that only a small fraction of it is still actually being watched. We now need to spend some time interrogating our video statistics to determine how much of the old content really needs to be transcribed.

The best value compromise, if we choose to continue to host video ourselves, may be to transcribe all future videos and any that have been watched at some point in the last year. In addition, it should be possible to provide an ‘on-demand’ service, whereby videos are flagged by users as requiring a transcription at the click of a button. Once flagged, the video is queued for transcription and a few minutes later a transcription is made available and the user alerted.

Video title: Warner Goodman Commercial Contracts.
Copyright: Lynda Povey ( Enterprise Adviser) nest, The University of Portsmouth.

Image Credit: Photo by Jason Rosewell on Unsplash

Through the mirror – learning through reflection

October 28, 2019 / Marie Kendall-Waters / 0 Comments

It’s easy to get swept along in the hustle and bustle and the hum-drum work-a-day life. The constant flow of work emails and phone calls, running from one meeting to the next, information going in one ear and out the other, you feel like you’ve run out of hours in the day before you’ve even begun! However, all the things you do at work, although might not feel like it at the time, have a purpose, and result in a solution that provides information that can help others!

So let’s take a step back and breath!

Let’s start with a little activity: go and make a cup of tea and ask yourself:

‘when was the last time I sat down and actually reflected on my work?’

It may sound like a silly question, but I bet most of you don’t actively reflect on your daily work life – things that you’ve achieved, things that didn’t go so well, new things you’ve learnt, ways you’ve helped people, provided new ways of doing things, seen or read something interesting that could help your team or section, events and conferences you’ve attended – there will always be something that you or your peers can learn from.

Can you think of any examples? If so, jot them down.

By sharing these experiences that we don’t always think are significant, we could aid others to learn and develop new skills and improve communication within a team/section and organisation.

The importance of reflection

Reflecting helps you to develop your skills and review their effectiveness, rather than just carry on doing things as you have always done them. It is about questioning, in a positive way, what you do and why you do it and then deciding whether there is a better, or more efficient, way of doing it in the future. By reflecting on a regular basis, it soon becomes habit and can be incorporated in your daily working life.

Reflection is an important part of learning and we encourage our students to actively self reflect – so why aren’t we?

The Open University explain the importance of reflection as:

‘You wouldn’t use a recipe a second time around if the dish didn’t work the first time would you? You would either adjust the recipe or find a new and, hopefully, better one. When we learn we can become stuck in a routine that may not be working effectively. Thinking about your own skills can help you identify changes you might need to make.’ [1]

This in turn helps you develop within your role and learn from your experiences. So how can we learn from our experiences and evolve by reflecting?

Putting reflective writing into practice

By regularly self reflecting and keeping a record of our experiences through writing we can put what we have learnt through reflection into practice. Reflective writing includes both analysis, description and helps clarify your thoughts, particularly important aspects and identifies areas where you need more support and can help work out strategies for problem solving. It can help you to personalise and contextualise your own learning experience.

The way you respond to situations, opinions, events or new information can aid in exploring your learning and achieve clarity and understanding of what you are learning. Blogging and online journals are a great way of keeping a record of your experiences and practicing reflective writing on a regular basis.

The benefits of reflective writing

It can be difficult when you’re busy to find time to reflect, but by doing so you’re learning an important skill. You’ll not only improve your writing skills, but you’ll increase you’ll self-awareness and develop a better understanding of others. Reflective writing can help you to develop creative thinking skills and encourages active engagement in work processes.

Did you know reflective learners share the following common characteristics:

Very motivated – know what they are trying to achieve and why.
Proactive in expanding their understanding of new ideas and topics.
Use their existing knowledge to develop their comprehension of new ideas.
Understand new concepts by aligning and comparing them to their life experiences.
Accept and understand that research and extensive reading will improve their comprehension and add value to their writing.
By evaluating of their previous learning experiences, they will develop their future learning and thinking.
Become self-aware and are clearly able to identify, explain, and leverage their strengths and work on their weaknesses

Learning by doing – Reflective learning cycle – the theory bit!

Graham Gibbs’ (1988) Reflective Learning Cycle was developed to give structure to learning from experiences. It offers a framework for examining experiences, and given its cyclic nature lends itself particularly well to repeated experiences, allowing you to learn and plan from things that either went well or didn’t go well. It covers 6 stages:

Description of the experience
Feelings and thoughts about the experience
Evaluation of the experience, both good and bad
Analysis to make sense of the situation
Conclusion about what you learned and what you could have done differently
Action plan for how you would deal with similar situations in the future, or general changes you might find appropriate.

Carol Dweck (2007) takes this a step further by looking at the growth mindset – which reinforces the idea that everyone can learn and learn most things well. Reflection can help you to fulfil your potential by believing you can improve.

‘In practice reflective learning allows students to step back from their regular learning methodology and develop critical thinking skills to enhance their future performance by analyzing and reviewing their learning experiences – both the content of what they have learnt and the emotions, if any, attached to the learning content.’ [2]

Carol Dweck – growth mindset https://www.ted.com/talks/carol_dweck_the_power_of_believing_that_you_can_improve#t-353

How we are ‘Learning by doing’ – Tel Tales and the Tel Team

Tel Tales is an example of reflective writing in practice, it’s a community of practice, where we regularly share our experiences, ideas, failures and learning through blogging. It can often feel difficult and challenging as a form of self reflection and academic writing as it does involve writing about our errors and anxieties just as well as our successes. It’s often hard to find the time to stand back and reflect but it’s also crucial for us in developing and evolving as individuals and as a team within the current university climate.

Reflection is an important skill in learning and developing one’s self and helps us to personalise and conceptualise our own experiences. Collaboratively, it’s a great way to share our experiences whether bad or good, and develop as a team whilst raising our profile and improving our writing and critical thinking skills.

We are always looking for guest bloggers, so if you would like to contribute to our blog and did have time to have that cuppa and reflect, then please get in touch with me and share your ideas!

What is Vyond?

How can using Vyond help me?

Tips for making a great video

Here’s one I made earlier!

How can I try it out?

Already using Vyond or something similar – let us know!

The importance of doodling – aren’t they just squiggles?

How can we use doodles in the context of education and learning?

Doodling put into practice

Doodle or not to doodle? There’s no wrong way!

References:

Screencastify

Screencast-O-Matic

Brainscape

Background

The contenders

Mozilla Deepspeech

Google Speech to Text Engine

Amazon Transcribe

The results

Mozilla Deepspeech

Google Speech to Text (through youtube)

Amazon Transcribe

Conclusion

So let’s take a step back and breath!

The importance of reflection

Putting reflective writing into practice

The benefits of reflective writing

Learning by doing – Reflective learning cycle – the theory bit!

How we are ‘Learning by doing’ – Tel Tales and the Tel Team

Further reading:

Podcasts

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