Let’s make the live seminars amazing. Ideas please!

We are quite happy with the way the live seminar is working today. For one, the server is not crashing (at least so far ...) and there seems to be an active chat conversation.

However, it's not easy to bounce between watching and chatting, and some people commented that the twitter discussion last week was easier to follow. And some of the video formats might be more engaging than others. There is clearly room for improvement.

In our experience, a great way to improve the course is to ask those taking it, all of you. As we've said before, we consider this a great experiment - and we are all experimenting together.

We would love to hear ideas to make the live seminars as good as possible. Getting feedback on what you liked or what could be improved would be very useful.

Congrats. This week solved most of the glitches from last week. I think most people had a satisfying experience.

Since you asked for feedback on the seminars:
1) Mitch's video introduction to the Media Lab was incredibly ambitious. Very few movies have such a long tracking shot without cuts or retakes. It worked pretty well, but I bet if you filmed with the idea of making edits, your end video would be shorter and even more compelling.

2) Same thing applies to the pre-recorded "live videos." It's a lot more work, but editing the conversation to avoid repetition and cut-aways to visuals (as you did do a few times) would raise the quality and viewing interest even more. I understand that may be too much extra work.

3) You may want to consider pausing the video playback (if that's technically possible) during the live session, so you can add voice or text in the chat window prompt some chat back channel conversation - just to raise the feeling of live interaction. Again just something to think about.

4) I understand the need for pre-recorded videos. However, I think the last short video about assignments should be delivered live, rather than pre-recorded. Would give a better feeling of closure with a real "live" wrap up.

5) Again, not sure if it's practical, but may be better to reduce the size of hangouts. 10 is a lot.

Just a some food for thought.
Ciao for niao,
Bob

The unhangout sessions were great, but a little short. It´s hard to get to know people in a few minutes. If the session ends with an unhangout session there´s plenty of time if we want. I think the whole idea is just super.

I really like the idea of thinking about the videos differently. I have no complaints, but if the idea now is to have prerecorded videos (I think a great idea) that we all watch live, this could free up room to do editing first. I also like the idea of an actual live wrap-up and short live clips in between videos.

I actually liked 10 for the Hangout I got to go to. It might be useful to play with the numbers, though.

I really like the backchannel chat on the same page as the streaming videos, but I wish there was an easy or more accessible way for those that find it distracting to hide the chat going on. I don't use Twitter myself and it would be more difficult for me to go back and forth to listen/watch while checking out live conversations going on if backchannel were only done through #LCL2 or other hashtags on Twitter. I would support both if possible, especially if it were easier for people to hide the Unhangout chat if they wanted to do so.

I really liked this overall, it was amazing. Thanks again Media Lab

One thing I could suggest is maybe different chat channels. One for main, one for support (troubleshooting, etc), and any other channels that might be helpful (different languages?)

One idea is to have separate sessions:

1. The core Unhangouts (where the focus is on following/discussing course-content videos)

2. Other Unhangouts (or single HoA+chat) based on analyzing the course, discussing forum threads, people getting to know each other, and so on. (This overlaps with the course-runners suggestion to create an online group for others with shared interests in the Meet subforum -- but maybe this could be not just "groups," but specific live sessions.)

I have a bunch of ideas here that might fall into the category of course suggestions, or might just be things for some of us to implement and share here. I'm personally very interested in the promise of live, interactive events, I think about this stuff nearly 24/7.

One thing to check out is how CreativeLive does things. They combine live, day-long in-studio workshops with IRC-based chat that the audience can participate in. On-stage CreativeLive hosts follow the chat (which often has several hundred people the chat), and read out questions and comments on-air, alternating with the main presenter giving their workshop.

One way they manage overwhelm in the chat is providing three text chat rooms per session: one for casual chat, one for on-topic conversation, one for questions for the workshop presenters.)

Focusing back on this course, one thing that jumped out at me was the optional video #5. Before I watched it (thanks @mpoole32 for pointing it out), I didn't really even know what Scratch was. Somehow my mind had classified it as "some irrelevant thing," but after watching the tutorial video, I realized it's a good fit for some of the things I'm actually working on. (So, I wonder if others may have missed that as well.)

Overall, I think it's worth keeping in mind the question of how to deliver content to people (traditional "teaching" where the idea is for learners to understand specific things), vs. the various other things cMOOCs and live, interactive events are good for (people connecting, participants bringing their own interests/knowledge/problems to the table, dynamic evaluation and modification of course design, and so on.)

All of those things are important, but doing them all at once can be a bit chaotic. Even more so when the audience/"class" has a very wide range of interests, background knowledge, and goals for the course...not to mention learning styles. How to address that a huge challenge, but also a great opportunity for experimenting with new ways of doing things.

Re: Hangouts

One solution here is to mark several rooms for "small-group chat (recommended size: 5)" and/or just suggest that people try joining rooms with less people.

I also like @skola2015 suggestion of ending the Unhangout with a final call to join rooms for people who want to have an extended chat.

(Of course, people can set up their own hangouts... But, one of the benefits of a centrally-facilitated course is providing a catalyst for people to try things they might not otherwise do.)

Re: Text chat

Agreed, several chat tabs could be good. One for on-topic, one for analyzing the course or meta conversation, maybe one for troubleshooting. If that's not easy to do, I could provide a page with a web IRC client for support/backchannel conversation, or we could use another real-time platform like Rizzoma.com (based on the old Google Wave) to have parallel conversation. (Though Riz has a bit of a learning curve as well.)

Personally, I prefer traditional text chat (IRC-style, or like what's in Unhangouts now) to Twitter chats. But, of course, a lot of people like Twitter as well, and it has some advantages. No reason we can't do both, and even have people quote remarkable lines from either one in the other.

Re: pre-recorded videos

I think pre-recording makes sense when the content is pretty much scripted. However, maybe it would also make sense to release the videos early (maybe the morning of the Unhangout) for those who want to watch ahead of time, and come prepared with questions, a sense of what what will be covered, and more attention to give to the other elements of the Unhangout (chat, breakout sessions.)

The question of editing vs. recording live is an interesting one. It definitely adds more work to edit, especially if there's nobody with editing skills around... but it's worth considering for "course content" style videos, as opposed to more dynamic conversations.

And then, asking people to watch course content videos ahead of time might make the "live session" part more interactive with what people are typing in chat.

One more thought on the breakout sessions:

Would it be possible to run the Hangouts as (unlisted) Hangouts-on-Air, so they (1) get recorded, and (2) a preview link for each could be available in the breakout session list?

I think the back channel chat was fine. To make it less distracting though, I just changed my browsers size so that the video was directly to the left of the new comments/chats. This allowed my eyes to easily go back and forth between the video and the chat. Maybe just simply moving the video to the bottom left of the page would help people?

M

Oh I couldn´t participate I had a meeting

Agreed. There was very little time to get settled, do quick intros and then build a conversation. The room I was in wasn't really very focused on the video content currently being played so running the unhangout asynchronously at the end and leaving it open ended sounds like a good plan.

I know this may not be possible, but would LCL team consider rotating the times and days of the Live seminars for those of us who just never can be available on a Tuesday at 1pm? Perhaps an evening event?

See http://bit.ly/LCLevents for hangouts "on analyzing the course, discussing forum threads, people getting to know each other, and so on" following http://discuss-learn.media.mit.edu/t/think-listen-share-on-our-learning-process-in-the-lcl2-mooc/177

Thanks Peter. 4/1 happens to coincide with a planning period for me, so I am going to try to attend if I can get my IT dept to unblock Google+.

It might be fun to do a talk out of the room. What would happen if you each picked the most "uncreative" place you can think of and talk about creativity with some panning to the background and activities in your different venues? (Visual compare and contrast with your dialogue.) Either you could have people finding creativity in that unexpected place (whether you tell them why this place was chosen or not) or you could facilitate a discussion on what/how to change this place to "be creative." This is an implicit way to get to our individual definitions and applications of creativity without suggesting what is "the right answer."

Is there an alternate live session. If I remember correctly, there was an added evening time last year to replay for more collaborative weekly watching if you can not make the 1p.m. ET Tuesday event?

That's a cool idea, I like the contrast as it would be more realistic to most folks participating, we are mostly not privileged to be able to create in a place like the Media Lab, so what to do when you are trying to be creative and learn in an environment you cannot control.

As for yesterday's class, I could not access it in real time because I kept getting a weird auto drop down box that told me I was booted out of the session and had to re enter, yet every time I tried to do so, the same weird white drop down box kept coming down from the top screen. I tried to type in the text box to see if I was the only one experiencing this but I couldn't get the text box to accept anything before the box dropped down each time. A bit maddening!

One thing I do miss from last year's LCL is the live class feeling with you all talking to us. The table set up right now fosters the 2-3 folks in the camera's vision to be talking to each other, and it feels a bit disconnected to the viewer. Like I'm secretly listening in on something! I liked the set up last year with the camera more at a direct head on angle so it was like we were all in the same room talking directly to each other, if that makes sense...it's more of a camera angle adjustment I think.

Regarding the use of pre recorded videos, I have no issue with that, but everyone views them at a different speed and I wonder if there is any way you all can click a button on your side and we all watch the pre recorded videos at the same time on one screen...is that even possible?

I initially had a kind of similar error that I think I tracked down to my browser but I could be mistaken. I don't have enough information to know and I basically was able to experience it normally after refreshing. Might have been unrelated, or not just a browser issue and unhangout was somehow stuck unless refreshed for others. I don't know, maybe this will help

I like thinking more about the different video format last year.

For me, it makes sense that at least some of the videos are prerecorded and synced while chat is available instead of live videos and chat at the same time. I like this idea because while last year was all around awesome, it seemed like they were trying hard to get everything important covered including what people were chatting about. This year, they can follow along with us in the chat and have seemed more able to respond with us.

I actually like the set-up now you mentioned where it is three of them around the same table each time. It seems somehow friendly and inviting to me. I wouldn't mind if some of the videos were changed up, though. I like that there are still guests and panels, but it seemed like that was more in-depth last year. I would enjoy more focus on guests. Maybe not as much as last year with what's going on this year, but I really liked seeing different guests and their views on the course week. I would enjoy some more of that.

I'm not sure how to help with technical issues, but will ask someone who might and hope there can be some resolution. As for as the changes of LCL from this year and last, I was wondering if it might be interesting to have variety. You liked videos that made it feel as if the speaker was talking right to you while James pointed out he liked the round table feel. Maybe since there are usually four videos two of each camera angle--perspective changing--would be neat, even if it gets used next year instead of this one. It's great how everyone gets something different out of the experience so that as a work-in-progress when changes are made, we can see how our suggestions make a difference in the MOOC as much as vice versa.

We'll play with the angle and how we are sitting over the next few weeks. You'll see us sitting at more of 11am, 12noon, 1pm set-up in one of the videos next week - curious to hear if that works better. We would like the vibe to be very conversational and hoped that it would feel like you are in the room with us, but probably didn't get it quite right.

We currently control general playback at normal speed. Individuals can opt out of that to watch at different speeds, but I'm not sure how many are doing that at the moment. The value of the back channel is to watch the video at the same speed. I hadn't thought of this before.

Thank you everyone for the amazing ideas and sharing your feedback. We'll be experimenting with a few of these ideas over the next few weeks - for example how we are sitting and how we address the camera. Let us know how it goes as we try out new things!

Other suggestions may need a little more thinking and planning - and some are probably for next year. For example we are undecided on how much effort to put into post-production. On one hand it does make the videos better - and having the ability to talk about a project and then show it is great. On the other hand it takes away time from other things (like participating in this forum, or designing the activities). And it raises the bar. We would like everyone to feel that they could also develop an online learning experience like this, on a topic that they care about. We believe that the tools are easy enough to make that possible - almost anyone has a decent webcam or phone these days. Doing our videos in a DIY style gives other DIY efforts legitimacy. At least that's what we think ...

Thank you for all of your work.

It is possible to patch a person in by skype or even phone -- just let me know.

Yes that´s a good idea but in a different time I mean not at 1 p.m.
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Philipp, I think the more unpolished videos are indeed more accessible and do make others feel as though doing something similar for their own work is doable, so I'm all for the DIY feel that captures the immediacy of the conversation, vs. a highly edited and slick version. In fact, years ago I did an impromptu survey in Indonesia while on an assignment to make a learning video for illiterate health workers. What I found was that people said that the more folksy, "home made" videos looked more "real" to them and as a result the information contained in the home made looking video was taken more seriously, whereas the same information in a highly edited and polished version looked more like what they see in the movies and thus, they didn't take it as being as real even though it was shot on location in their own village because it looked too slick. So I'm a big fan of the more raw video quality...

I'm glad to hear that the DIY style works - and thanks for sharing the story from Indonesia. I want to add that a lot of preparation and time goes into thinking about what we will discuss, who we invite, and how we frame the conversations - it's still a lot of effort, but we are more interested in spending our time thinking about those questions, rather than the video/audio quality. I can see value in both though.

An example of what I would consider useful editing is how the team used a simple cut away to a video clip. I don't think this diminished the DIY feel or focused unnecessarily. I think that trying to put together a polished, HD version with Hollywood bells and whistles would probably be taking away from better use of time. I like that the idea is to make it approachable for others to try. Simple and useful edits like a basic fade to a clip makes sense if there's time and a legitimate need. I don't see editing as critical. As far as editing to improve video/audio quality, I agree that the quality seems functional enough. The higher quality the video and audio = larger filesize to stream. This would probably be more strain on servers and more difficult for everyone to stay consistently sync'ed without errors.