Category Archives: Blended Learning

Developing Your Expertise in Machine Learning: Podcasts for Breadth vs. Depth

Posted on by
Reply

From ad hoc to highly professional, there’s no shortage of resources when it comes to learning Machine Learning. Not only should podcasts be blatantly regarded as both viable and valuable resources, the two I cover in this post present opportunities for improving your breadth and/or depth in Machine Learning.

Machine Learning Guide

As a component of his own process for ramping up his knowledge and skills in the area of Machine Learning, OCDevel’s Tyler Renelle has developed an impressive resource of some 30 podcasts. Through this collection of episodes, Tyler’s is primarily a breadth play when it comes to the matter of learning Machine Learning, though he alludes to depth as well in how he positions his podcasts:

Where your other resources provide the machine learning trees, I provide the forest. Consider me your syllabus. At the end of every episode I provide high-quality curated resources for learning each episode’s details.

As I expect you’ll agree, with Tyler’s Guide, the purely audio medium of podcasting permits the breadth of Machine Learning to be communicated extremely effectively; in his own words, Tyler states:

Audio may seem inferior, but it’s a great supplement during exercise/commute/chores.

I couldn’t agree more. Even from the earliest of those episodes in this series, Tyler demonstrates the viability and value of this medium. In my opinion, he is particularly effective for at least three reasons:

  1. Repetition – Extremely important in any learning process, regardless of the medium, repetition is critical when podcasting is employed as a tool for learning.
  2. Analogies – Again, useful in learning regardless of the medium involved, yet extremely so in the case of podcasting. Imagine effective, simple, highly visual and sometimes fun analogies being introduced to explain, for example, a particular algorithm for Machine Learning.
  3. Enthusiasm – Perhaps a no-brainer, but enthusiasm serves to captivate interest and motivate action.

As someone who’s listened to each and every one of those 30 or so episodes, I can state with some assuredness that: We are truly fortunate that Tyler has expended the extra effort to share what he has learned in the hope that it’ll also help others. The quality of the Guide is excellent. If anything, I recall occasionally taking exception to some of the mathematical details related by Tyler. Because Tyler approaches this Guide from the perspective of an experienced developer, lapses mathematical in nature are extremely minor, and certainly do not detract from the overall value of the podcast.

After sharing his Guide, Tyler started up Machine Learning Applied:

an exclusive podcast series on practical/applied tech side of the same. Smaller, more frequent episodes.

Unfortunately, with only six episodes starting from May 2018, and none since mid-July, this more-applied series hasn’t yet achieved the stature of its predecessor. I share this more as a statement of fact than criticism, as sustaining the momentum to deliver such involved content on a regular cadence is not achieved without considerable effort – and, let’s be realistic, more than just a promise of monetization.

This Week in Machine Learning and AI

Whereas OCDevel’s Guide manifests itself as a one-person, breadth play, This Week in Machine Learning and AI (TWiML&AI) exploits the interview format in probing for depth. Built upon the seemingly tireless efforts of knowledgeable and skilled interviewer Sam Charrington, TWiML&AI podcasts allow those at the forefront of Machine Learning to share the details of their work – whether that translates to their R&D projects, business ventures or some combination thereof.

Like Tyler Renelle, Sam has a welcoming and nurturing style that allows him to ensure his guests are audience-centric in their responses – even if that means an episode is tagged with a ‘geek alert’ for those conversations that include mathematical details, for example. As someone who engages in original research in Machine Learning, I have learned a lot from TWiML&AI. Specifically, after listening to a number of episodes, I’ve followed up on show notes by delving a little deeper into something that sounded interesting; and on more than a few occasions, I’ve unearthed something of value for those projects I’m working on. Though Sam has interviewed some of the most well known in this rapidly evolving field, it is truly wonderful that TWiML&AI serves as an equal-opportunity platform – a platform that allows voices that might otherwise be marginalized to also be heard.

At this point, Sam and his team at TWIML&AI have developed a community around the podcast. The opportunity for deeper interaction exists through meetups, for example – meetups that have ranged from focused discussion on a particularly impactful research paper, to a facilitated study group in support of a course. In addition to all of this online activity, Sam and his team participate actively in a plethora of events, and have even been known to host events in person as well.

One last thought regarding TWiML&AI: The team here takes significant effort to ensure that each of the 185 episodes (and counting!) is well documented. While this is extremely useful, I urge you not to merely make your decision on what to listen to based upon teasers and notes alone. Stated differently, I can relate countless examples for which I perceived a very low level of interest prior to actually listening to an episode, only to be both surprised and delighted when I did. As I recall well my from my running days, run for that first kilometre or so (0.6214 of a mile 😉 ) before you make the decision as to how far you’ll run that day.

From the understandably predictable essentials of breadth, to the sometimes surprising and delightful details of depth, these two podcasts well illustrate the complementarity between the schools of breadth and depth. Based upon my experience, you’ll be well served by taking in both of these podcasts – whether you need to jumpstart or engage-in-continuous learning. Have a listen.

Pencasting During Lectures in Large Venues

Posted on by
3

In a recent post on pencasting as a way of teaching/learning weather and climate, I stated:

Monday (October 1, 2012), I intend to use a pencast during my lecture – to introduce aspects of the stability of Earth’s atmosphere. I’ll try to share here how it went. For this intended use of the pencast, I will use a landscape mode for presentation – as I expect that’ll work well in the large lecture hall I teach in. I am, however, a little concerned that the lines I’ll be drawing will be a little too thin/faint for the students at the back of the lecture theatre to see …

I followed through as advertized (above) earlier today.

Image

My preliminary findings are as follows:

  • The visual aspects of the pencast are quite acceptable – This is true even in large lecture halls such as the 500-seat Price Family Cinema at York University (pictured above) in Toronto, Canada where I am currently teaching. I used landscape mode for today’s pencast, and zoomed it in a little. A slightly thicker pen option would be wonderful for such situations … as would different pen colours (the default is green).
  • The audio quality of the pencasts is very good to excellent – Although my Livescribe pen came with a headset/microphone, I don’t use it. I simply use the built-in microphone on the pen, and speak normally when I am developing pencasts. Of course, the audio capabilities of the lecture hall I teach in are most excellent for playback!
  • One-to-many live streaming of pencasts works well – I streamed live directly from myLivescibe today. I believe the application infrastructure is based largely on Adobe Flash and various Web services delivered by Web Objects. Regardless of the technical underpinnings, live streaming worked well. Of course, I could’ve developed a completely self-contained PDF file, downloaded this, and run the pencast locally using Adobe Reader.
  • Personal pencasting works well – I noticed that a number of students were streaming the pencast live for themselves during the lecture. In so doing, they could control interaction with the pencast.

Anecdotally, a few students mentioned that they appreciated the pencast during the break period – my class meets once per for a three-hour session.

Although I’ve yet to hear this feedback directly from the students, I believe I need to:

  • Decrease the duration of pencasts – Today’s lasts about 10 minutes
  • Employ a less-is-more approach/strategy – My pencasts are fairly involved when done …
  • Experiment with the right balance of speaking to penning (is that even a word!?) – Probably a less-is-more approach/strategy would work well here for both the penned and spoken word …

Finally, today’s pencast on the basics of atmospheric stability:

  • Previous approach – Project an illustration taken directly from the course’s text. This is a professionally produced, visually appealing, detailed, end-result, static diagram that I embedded in my presentation software (I use Google Docs for a number of reasons.) Using a laser pointer, my pedagogy called for a systematic deconstruction this diagram – hoping that the students would be engaged enough to actually follow me. Of course, in the captured versions of my lectures, the students don’t actually see where I’m directing the laser pointer. The students have access to the course text and my lecture slides. I have no idea if/how they attempt to ingest and learn from this approach.
  • Pencasting – As discussed elsewhere, the starting point is a blank slate. Using the pencasting technology, I sketch my own rendition of the illustration from the text. As I build up the details, I explain the concept of stability analyses. Because the sketch appears as I speak, the students have the potential to follow me quite closely – and if they miss anything, they can review the pencast after class at their own pace. The end result of a pencast is a sketch that doesn’t hold a candle to the professionally produced illustration provided in the text and my lecture notes. However, to evaluate the pencast as merely a final product, I believe, misses the point completely. Why? I believe the pencast is a far superior way to teach and to learn in situations such as this one. Why? I believe the pencast allows the teacher to focus on communication – communication that the learner can also choose to be highly receptive to, and engaged by.

I still regard myself as very much a neophyte in this arena. However, as the above final paragraphs indicate, pencasting is a disruptive innovation whose value in teaching/learning merits further investigation.

Teaching/Learning Weather and Climate via Pencasting

Posted on by
3

I first heard about it a few years ago, and thought it sounded interesting … and then, this past Summer, I did a little more research and decided to purchase a Livescribe 8 GB Echo(TM) Pro Pack. Over the Summer, I took notes with the pen from time-to-time and found it to be somewhat useful/interesting.

Just this week, however, I decided it was time to use the pen for the originally intended purpose: Making pencasts for the course I’m currently teaching in weather and climate at Toronto’s York University. Before I share some sample pencasts, please allow me to share my findings based on less than a week’s worth of `experience’:

  • Decent-quality pencasts can be produced with minimal effort – I figured out the basics (e.g., how to record my voice) in a few minutes, and started on my first pencast. Transferring the pencast from the pen to the desktop software to the Web (where it can be shared with my students) also requires minimal effort. “Decent quality” here refers to both the visual and audio elements. The fact that this is both a very natural (writing with a pen while speaking!) and speedy (efficient/effective) undertaking means that I am predisposed towards actually using the technology whenever it makes sense – more on that below. Net-net: This solution is teacher-friendly.
  • Pencasts compliment other instructional media – This is my current perspective … Pencasts compliment the textbook readings I assign, the lecture slides plus video/audio captures I provide, the Web sites we all share, the Moodle discussion forums we engage in, the Tweets I issue, etc. In the spirit of blended learning it is my hope that pencasts, in concert with these other instructional media, will allow my TAs and I to `reach’ most of the students in the course.
  • Pencasts allow the teacher to address both content and skills-oriented objectives – Up to this point, my pencasts have started from a blank page. This forces me to be focused, and systematically develop towards some desired content (e.g., conceptually introducing the phase diagram for H2O) and/or skills (e.g., how to calculate the slope of a line on a graph) oriented outcome. Because students can follow along, they have the opportunity to be fully engaged as the pencast progresses. Of course, what this also means is that this technology can be as effective in the first-year university level course I’m currently teaching, but also at the academic levels that precede (e.g., grade school, high school, etc.) and follow (senior undergraduate and graduate) this level.
  • Pencasts are learner-centric – In addition to be teacher-friendly, pencasts are learner-centric. Although a student could passively watch and listen to a pencast as it plays out in a linear, sequential fashion, the technology almost begs you to interact with it. As noted previously, this means a student can easily replay some aspect of the pencast that they missed. Even more interestingly, however, students can interact with pencasts in a random-access mode – a mode that would almost certainly be useful when they are attempting to apply the content/skills conveyed through the pencast to a tutorial or assignment they are working on, or a quiz or exam they are actively studying for. It is important to note that both the visual and audio elements of the pencast can be manipulated with impressive responsiveness to random-access input from the student.
  • I’m striving for authentic, not perfect pencasts – With a little more practice and some planning/scripting, I’d be willing to bet that I could produce an extremely polished pencast. Based on past experience teaching today’s first-year university students, I’m fairly convinced that this is something they couldn’t care less about. Let’s face it, my in-person lectures aren’t perfectly polished, and neither are my pencasts. Because I can easily go back to existing pencasts and add to them, I don’t need to fret too much about being perfect the first time. Too much time spent fussing here would diminish the natural and speedy aspects of the technology.

Findings aside, on to samples:

  • Calculating the lapse rate for Earth’s troposphere – This is a largely a skills-oriented example. It was my first pencast. I returned twice to the original pencast to make changes – once to correct a spelling mistake, and the second time to add in a bracket (“Run”) that I forgot. I communicated these changes to the students in the course via an updated link shared through a Moodle forum dedicated to pencasts. If you were to experience the updates, you’d almost be unaware of the lapse of time between the original pencast and the updates, as all of this is presented seamlessly as a single pencast to the students.
  • Introducing the pressure-temperature phase diagram for H2O – This is largely a content-oriented example. I got a little carried away in this one, and ended up packing in a little too much – the pencast is fairly long, and by the time I’m finished, the visual element is … a tad on the busy side. Experience gained.

Anecdotally, initial reaction from the students has been positive. Time will tell.

Next steps:

  • Monday (October 1, 2012), I intend to use a pencast during my lecture – to introduce aspects of the stability of Earth’s atmosphere. I’ll try to share here how it went. For this intended use of the pencast, I will use a landscape mode for presentation – as I expect that’ll work well in the large lecture hall I teach in. I am, however, a little concerned that the lines I’ll be drawing will be a little too thin/faint for the students at the back of the lecture theatre to see …
  • I have two sections of the NATS 1780 Weather and Climate course to teach this year. One section is taught the traditional way – almost 350 students in a large lecture theatre, 25-student tutorial groups, supported by Moodle, etc. In striking contrast to the approach taken in the meatspace section, is the second section where almost everything takes place online via Moodle. Although I have yet to support this hypothesis with any data, it is my belief that these pencasts are an excellent way to reach out to the students in the Internet-only section of the course. More on this over the fullness of time (i.e., the current academic session.)

Feel free to comment on this post or share your own experiences with pencasts.

Targeting Public Speaking Skills via Virtual Environments

Posted on by
Reply

Recently I shared an a-ha! moment on the use of virtual environments for confronting the fear of public speaking.

The more I think about it, the more I’m inclined to claim that the real value of such technology is in targeted skills development.

Once again, I’ll use myself as an example here to make my point.

If I think back to my earliest attempts at public speaking as a graduate student, I’d claim that I did a reasonable job of delivering my presentation. And given that the content of my presentation was likely vetted with my research peers (fellow graduate students) and supervisor ahead of time, this left me with a targeted opportunity for improvement: The Q&A session.

Countless times I can recall having a brilliant answer to a question long after my presentation was finished – e.g., on my way home from the event. Not very useful … and exceedingly frustrating.

I would also assert that this lag, between question and appropriate answer, had a whole lot less to do with my expertise in a particular discipline, and a whole lot more to do with my degree nervousness – how else can I explain the ability to fashion perfect answers on the way home!

image006Over time, I like to think that I’ve approved my ability to deliver better-quality answers in real time. How have I improved? Experience. I would credit my experience teaching science to non-scientists at York, as well as my public-sector experience as a vendor representative at industry events, as particularly edifying in this regard.

Rather than submit to such baptisms of fire, and because hindsight is 20/20, I would’ve definitely appreciated the opportunity to develop my Q&A skills in virtual environments such as Nortel web.alive. Why? Such environments can easily facilitate the focused effort I required to target the development of my Q&A skills. And, of course, as my skills improve, so can the challenges brought to bear via the virtual environment.

All speculation at this point … Reasonable speculation that needs to be validated …

If you were to embrace such a virtual environment for the development of your public-speaking skills, which skills would you target? And how might you make use of the virtual environment to do so?

Confronting the Fear of Public Speaking via Virtual Environments

Posted on by
5

Confession: In the past, I’ve been extremely quick to dismiss the value of Second Life in the context of teaching and learning.

Even worse, my dismissal was not fact-based … and, if truth be told, I’ve gone out of my way to avoid opportunities to ‘gather the facts’ by attending presentations at conferences, conducting my own research online, speaking with my colleagues, etc.

So I, dear reader, am as surprised as any of you to have had an egg-on-my-face epiphany this morning …

Please allow me to elaborate:

It was at some point during this morning’s brainstorming session that the egg hit me squarely in the face:

Why not use Nortel web.alive to prepare graduate students for presenting their research?

Often feared more than death and taxes, public speaking is an essential aspect of academic research – regardless of the discipline.

image004Enter Nortel web.alive with its virtual environment of a large lecture hall – complete with a podium, projection screen for sharing slides, and most importantly an audience!

As a former graduate student, I could easily ‘see’ myself in this environment with increasingly realistic audiences comprised of friends, family and/or pets, fellow graduate students, my research supervisor, my supervisory committee, etc. Because Nortel web.alive only requires a Web browser, my audience isn’t geographically constrained. This geographical freedom is important as it allows for participation – e.g., between graduate students at York in Toronto and their supervisor who just happens to be on sabbatical in the UK. (Trust me, this happens!)

As the manager of Network Operations at York, I’m always keen to encourage novel use of our campus network. The public-speaking use case I’ve described here has the potential to make innovative use of our campus network, regional network (GTAnet), provincial network (ORION), and even national network (CANARIE) that would ultimately allow for global connectivity.

While I busy myself scraping the egg off my face, please chime in with your feedback. Does this sound useful? Are you aware of other efforts to use virtual environments to confront the fear of public speaking? Are there related applications that come to mind for you? (As someone who’s taught classes of about 300 students in large lecture halls, a little bit of a priori experimentation in a virtual environment would’ve been greatly appreciated!)

Update (November 13, 2009): I just Google’d the title of this article and came up with a few, relevant hits; further research is required.

Blended Learning Panel

Posted on by
2

York University’s Institute for Research on Learning Technologies is sponsoring a panel discussion on blended learning:

“A recent workplace survey reported by Brandon Hall Publishing (2008) indicates that employing a mix of web-technologies with face-to-face learning is more effective than either e-learning or face-to-face instructional approaches alone. To explore the use and potential of “blended learning” further, please join us for a panel discussion featuring experts from various fields …”

This event has been re-scheduled for April 2, 2009 at 12:15 pm in TEL 1009 at York’s Keele Campus. I anticipate a lively and interesting discussion!

(Please check the IRLT Web site for the latest updates on the event.)