Class Preferences

Today in our in-person Modern Algebra class, my students and I talked about our concerns moving forward and I solicited some student preferences that I found useful to rethink my delivery of course material in the coming weeks.

First, my students expressed a preference for lecture-length [50 minute] videos.  Color me surprised!  I (naively) thought the TikTok generation would prefer short videos.  I predict I will get overwhelmed with the creation and editing of 50 minute videos, so I'll do short edits. But I will probably use the YouTube playlist feature to put together 50 minutes of content that will autoplay for students.

The apps I'm most familiar with for pencasting (creating digital whiteboard lecture that you speak on top of, either as you create it or as you play back the penstrokes or both) are Doceri (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/doceri-interactive-whiteboard/id412443803, fairly simple to learn, direct post-to-YouTube option that's easy to use) and ExplainEverything (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/explain-everything-whiteboard/id1020339980, more [maybe too many?] features, a steeper for me learning curve, but it has an infinite canvas!) on an iPad.

I've also dug out my 2013 Wacom Intuos tablet, which still works with the latest Mac OS, for the Zoom whiteboard feature.  I know you can theoretically connect yourself and your iPad to Zoom, but I think the old-skool approach -- a specific pen-tablet that you plug into your computer as an additional input device -- will be easier to manage as I get used to Zoom.  I'm already familiar with how to use a pen-tablet from my math cartoonist days (ha!), so I'm feeling better about online office hours via Zoom than I was when I imagined figuring out how to manage multiple connections, etc.

I'm also cooking up a low-tech solution (h/t to @benblumsmith on Twitter, who seems to have a similar low-tech problem-solving strategy) of mounting a (physical) blackboard to my office bookshelves using pulleys so I can raise and lower it and still be in my "recording zone" with the current configuration of the old mic and webcams I dug out for better quality recording.

Okay -- time to draft out a first attempt at a plan for Modern Algebra done online!