Classroom Capture the Easy Way

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Presentation Information

Classroom Capture the Easy Way
10:20-11:10 AM
Friday, October 23
Ohio NExT Workshop
Ohio Section of the Mathematical Association of America
Capital University
Columbus, Ohio

Presenter Information

• Scott P. Randby, Ph.D.
  Associate Professor of Technical Mathematics
  Department of Applied General and Technical Studies
  College of Applied Science and Technology
  The University of Akron
  Polsky 131F
  Akron, OH 44325-6105
• Email: srandby@uakron.edu

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1. Notes prepared beforehand: Standard deviation
   • Download lesson
2. Notes written during class: Area between curves
   • Download lesson

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Equipment

• Laptop
• Tablet
  • Needed if laptop not touchscreen and notes or slides not made beforehand.
  • Wacom
• Microphone
  • Sony ECMCS3 clip-on microphone
    • Easy to use
    • Good audio quality
    • Cheap ($20)
• Recorder
  • Not necessary if microphone plugged into the laptop
  • Zoom H1
    • Easy to use
    • Reliable
    • Record to WAV
    • Records to micro SD card
    • Battery or USB powered
    • $100

Software

• Journaling software
  • Make notes live
  • Xournal
    • Linux
    • Direct export to PDF
• Audio recording software
  • Not needed for recording if recorder used
  • Audacity
    • Use for recording and editing
    • Libre software
    • Linux, Windows, Mac
    • Excellent
• LaTeX
  • Used to make PDFs with proper metadata
• Audio file tagging software
  • Inserts tags into audio files
  • Kid3
    • Linux

Capture Process

1. Turn on laptop
2. Connect tablet to laptop
3. Connect laptop to projector
4. Open up new journaling software file
5. Attach microphone to shirt (best done beforehand)
6. Connect mircrophone to recorder (best done beforehand)
7. Turn on recorder
8. Check recording level ("Check, 1, 2, 3") (best done beforehand)
9. Start recording
10. Begin class

Post Production

1. Export notes to PDF
2. Use LaTeX to make PDF with proper metadata
3. Download audio recording to laptop
4. Edit audio
5. Convert audio to OGG and MP3
6. Add tags to OGG and MP3 files
7. Copy the HTML file from a template and edit it
8. Upload the PDF, OGG, MP3, HTML, and CSS files to the server
9. 15 minutes tops

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Advantages

• File sizes are small compared to video.
• All files may be downloaded for use offline.
  • PDF files may be printed.
  • Audio files may be downloaded to an audio file player.
    • Some players do not support OGG.
  • Unless you use WebM format for videos, downloading a video may be difficult and a student might not be able to play a downloaded video.
• Students can use the system efficiently.
  • The space bar may be used to scoll down notes (SHIFT-SPACE to scroll up).
  • The space bar may be used to pause audio.
• A fast Internet connection is not required.
• All files are in standard formats.
  • PDF, OGG, and MP3 are universal.
    • Maybe not OGG, but it is a free format: xiph.org
• Ease of production
  • Journaling software can export directly to PDF.
  • A simple LaTeX file can be used for combining PDFs and adding metadata.
  • Editing audio is a simple matter of cutting out the bits recorded before class started and after class ended, merging stereo tracks to mono (if necessary), and "normalizing" the audio track.
  • Adding tags to an audio file is easy.
  • The HTML file is a copy of an old file in which old file names have been replaced by new file names.
• Active learning
  • It is easy to create links in the PDF that lead to interactive web sites.
• Video production and editing is hard.
  • I used to use video: Video lesson example
  • The video format wars are crazy and there are many legal issues surrounding video formats.
  • Making a video during class requires a lot of computing resources.
    • Proprietary software solutions (such as Panopto or Camtasia) guarantee that you lose control over your files, don't work on all operating systems, and ensure that you will lose access to your recordings eventually.
    • Libre software solutions for video recording can be difficult to use: Creating and Using WebM Videos for Online Mathematics Courses
  • Synching video with audio is a pain.
  • Good video editing requires a lot of knowledge about video formats.
  • Video files are huge compared to audio files.
    • A good quality 30 minute OGG file can be around 11 MB.
    • A fair quality 30 minute WebM video will be around 150 MB.
• Other?

Disadvantages

• Students must pay attention to the relationship between the visible portion of the PDF and the audio being played.
  • Video takes care of this automatically (click and play).
  • This problem can cause "split attention" which is a well-known detriment to learning.
  • Most videos also create "split attention" because they aren't made by professionals who know how to make videos that avoid the problem.
• It is best to know a little bit about HTML and CSS when using this system.
  • Is that really a disadvantage?
• Learning management systems won't play nice with the HTML and CSS files.
  • It is best to upload all the files to a regular web server.
  • Again, is this really a bad thing?

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HTML Source Code

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" 
      lang="en" 
      xml:lang="en">

<head>

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" 
      content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" />
<title>Standard Deviation</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" 
      type="text/css" 
      href="lesson.css">

</head>

<body>

<!--BEGIN PDF CONTENT-->
<div>
  <object id="pdf-notes" 
          data="standard-deviation.pdf" 
          type="application/pdf">
    <a href="standard-deviation.pdf">
       Standard deviation notes</a>
  </object>
</div>
<!--END PDF CONTENT-->

<!--BEGIN AUDIO CONTENT-->
<div id="audio-division">
<div id="audio-content">

<audio
  id="audio-tag"
  controls
  preload="metadata">
  <source src="standard-deviation.ogg"/>
  <source src="standard-deviation.mp3"/>
  Your browser does not support the 
  <code>audio</code> tag.
</audio>

<a href="standard-deviation.ogg" 
   title="OGG">OGG</a>
<a href="standard-deviation.mp3" 
   title="MP3">MP3</a>
<a href="standard-deviation.pdf" 
   title="PDF">PDF</a>
<a href="standard-deviation-calculator.pdf" 
   title="Calculator Info">Calculator Info</a>

</div>
</div>
<!--END AUDIO CONTENT-->

</body>
</html>

CSS Source Code

body {
  background-color: white;
  max-height: 100%;
  height: 100%;
  padding: 0;
  margin: 0;
}

div {
  font-family: sans-serif;
}

/* BEGIN PDF CONTENT */
#pdf-notes {
  width:100%;
  height:92vh;
}
/* END PDF CONTENT */

/* BEGIN AUDIO CONTENT */
div #audio-division {
    width: 100vw;
}
div #audio-content {
    text-align:center;
    border-top: 2px solid black;
}
#audio-tag {
  margin-top: 2vh;
}
#audio-content a {
    border: 1px solid blue;
    font-size: x-large;
    font-weight: bold;
    color: blue;
    margin-left: 5px;
    text-decoration: none;
    vertical-align: 6px;
    padding-left: 2px;
    padding-right: 2px;
    color: white;
    background-color: navy;
    border-radius: 5px;
}
/* END AUDIO CONTENT */

LaTeX Source Code

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pdfpages}
\usepackage{hyperref}
\hypersetup{pdfauthor={Scott Randby},
            pdftitle={Standard Deviation},
            pdfsubject={Mathematics for Modern Technology},
            pdfkeywords={finite mathematics},
            pdfproducer={Emacs Org-mode},
            pdfcreator={pdflatex}}

%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
\begin{document}

\includepdf[pages=-]{standard-deviation-print.pdf}

\includepdf[pages=-]{standard-deviation-calculator.pdf}

\end{document}

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Live Recording

• It is best to record using a lossless format.
  • WAV
  • FLAC
    • A free format
• A sample rate of 44100 kHz is CD quality.
• A bit depth of 16 bits per sample works well.

Editing

• Mix the live recording to a mono track.
  • Audacity: Tracks > Stereo Track to Mono
  • Stereo is not needed for voice audio.
• Once the track is edited, normalize it to make its loudness acceptable.
  • Audacity: Effect > Normalize

Conversion to OGG and MP3

• CD quality audio is not necessary. Good quality voice audio can be obtained with low bit rates. Low bit rates result in relatively small files.
• Conversion to OGG
  • Quality 0 (approximately 64 kb/s) is good enough.
  • Audacity
    • File > Export Audio
    • Select to export to Ogg Vorbis Files
    • Click on Options…
    • Set the quality to 0
    • Click on Save
• Conversion to MP3
  • A bit rate of 64 kb/s is good enough.
  • Audacity
    • File > Export Audio
    • Select to export to MP3 Files
    • Click on Options…
    • Set the the bit rate mode to Constant
    • Set the quality to 64 kbps
    • Click on Save

Audio Tags

• It is a good idea to add tags to an audio file so that audio file players can supply the listener with information about the file.
• Audio file tagging software
  • Inserts tags into audio files
  • Kid3
    • Linux

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