Month: September 2020

Teams: Showing video and a presentation at the same time

When doing lessons with students with Teams I found a couple of little issues which I didn’t like. In a Teams meeting the page divides based on each participant where I simply want students to see me when presenting to them. I also wanted to them to be able to see my content, for example presentations, videos, etc but also to see me at the same time.

I found a YouTube video which solved these problems and you can view this here.  Thanks to Matt Wade for this. So yesterday I set about trying it practically.

Now the main trick here is that we aren’t going to share our video feed directly from our camera via the Teams app, but instead are going to use another app to place our video feed on our screen, allowing us to layer other elements such as a presentation on top, then sharing the whole screen via Teams.

So what hardware was I using?
When I attempted the below, I was using a MS Surface attached to a dock and a 2nd screen with the display set to extent across the two screens. This for me seems the best setup as it provides a screen to allow you to manage the Teams app and any other apps you want to display. This is basically your staging area, while your other screen is the one you will share with meeting attendees and therefore the one used to show your video feed.

So where to start?
First, we need to grab our video feed. To do this I simply used the inbuilt Windows camera app set to video.

Next, I maximised this window so that it was full screen.

Following this I dropped any additional content on top of the camera app video. For example, I could open a PowerPoint in a window and then lay this window on top of the camera app window. This could however be any window and could potentially include things like OneNote or the Whiteboard App.

A key thing here, if using PowerPoint, is to set it to display in a window rather than pushing to full screen when presenting. To do this select the Set Up Slide Show option under the Slide Show menu.

And then select the Show Type as “Browsed by an individual in a window”.

Now start the slideshow; It will display in a window which you can drop in on top of your video feed.

All that is left to do is to start your teams meeting. You may get a warning regarding your video not working but this is due to Teams being unable to access your webcam as it is already in use by the windows camera app.

As such don’t worry about this. Once the meeting is started simply share the screen where you have the windows camera app maximised.

All the attendees will now be looking at your video feed maximised in the Teams window, with your other content overlaid on top.

An alternative approach may be to use split screen in Windows allowing you to have your video feed on half of the screen and your other app such as PowerPoint or OneNote, etc on the other half.    To do this simply dock your PowerPoint or other app against the side of the screen.

Next Steps

The next thing I am going to look at is how the above might work if I have multiple cameras attached; Will this allow me to use the camera app to switch between video feed sources which might be good in switching from teacher view to class view assuming two cameras were attached; I will let you know how I get on with this.

Availability Bias and the news

Watching the BBC news this morning and I saw a perfect example of the availability bias.   A news anchor pinning down a government representative as to Covid testing stating that people had contacted the programme following issues they had booking a Covid test.   The news anchor used these individual reports as proof of the problems related to getting a Covid test, even citing the specific details of one or two people.

Now I am not pretending that Covid testing is perfect or not in need of improvement but to use the available reports as proof of the failings of Covid testing seems to be a perfect example of availability bias.    The raised issues, being readily available and readily coming to mind, become the proof without considering evidence which isnt as readily available.   Take for example those people who quickly and easily got a test; These people are unlikely to contact a news programme to report their satisfaction.   Or maybe the number of people dissatisfied as a percentage of the number of tests, or the increasing volume of tests, or the testing regimes in Covid hotspot areas versus those on areas not so badly impacted. This data may be possible to gather, however isnt as readily available as a number of reported complaints.

This all reminds me of the story relating to WWII; Originally when looking at bomber planes they would reinforce the areas of planes which were regularly showing as damaged by anti-aircraft (AA) fire as these seemed to be the areas suffering regular hits.    The idea was that by reinforcing these areas the chances of bombers returning would increase, however this didn’t happen.  It was only when someone suggested they look at the areas which returning bombers never showed damage on that they made progress.  The logic here being that the areas which bombers never showed damage on was often due to the fact when these areas were hit by AA fire the bombers simply never returned; The damage was critical.    These were the areas to focus on reinforcing. In this case, the easily available data, damage to aircraft, wasnt as helpful as it at first appeared.

The issue for me with the BBC falling into the availability bias trap is that the BBC are meant to be the bastion of truth, and currently I believe more people than ever are regularly watching the morning or evening news.    That they would report in such a biased way, and therefore potentially propagate a biased viewpoint is concerning.   

As we often focus on social media bias and what Facebook, etc are doing, we maybe need to be careful not to take our eyes of what the old conventional news are doing.

Delaying exams; why?

So, a research study has arrived at the conclusion that due to Covid19 students may be 3 months behind in their studies.     The delaying of exams to allow students more time to catch up has also been discussed.   This all seems like rather simplistic thinking.

There are for me a number of issues with delaying the exams.

The first is that we already accept that exams differ each year and therefore there is already tinkering in place to adjust the grade boundaries to keep some consistency across academic years when looking at the statistical outcomes of students in general.   This is why the result show small but steady changes year on year rather than being more volatile. It seems to me to be fairly easy to just adjust this process to normalise the exam results next year should they be, as would be expected, lower than previous years and should it be important to maintain parity in results across different calendar years. And this statistical fiddle would be more acceptable than the algorithm proposed for 2020 results as it doesnt differ from the statistical adjustments of GCSE and A-Level results in 2019, 2018, etc.

Another issue, if we were to delay the exams, is that it simply knocks on to following years.   So, delay the GCSE exams would mean teachers would lose some teaching time they would likely use to start A-Level studies or to start Year 13 teaching of A-Level subjects following Year 12 exams.  As such it doesnt solve the issue, but rather displaces it. Is the focus not on learning rather than measuring learning? As such how can any solution with a knock on to teaching and learning be acceptable.

Also, the point students should be at the end of each academic year has been arbitrarily determined.   At some point the curriculum for each subject was developed and the content decided for each year or stage however it could have easily been decided that more or less content be added.   Why, therefore, is the point students should be at perceived to be so immovable?Why not simply reduce content for the year based on the reduced time available to students? Surely this is an alternative option.

There is also the point that next years results will be compared with this years results, where it has already been reported this years results were significantly up.   This obviously resulted from the use of centre assessed grades, provided by teachers, without any of the normal annual statistical manipulation in relation to grade boundaries.    This comparison is unavoidable.So, despite any delay, etc, there is still a high likelihood of negative reporting in the press with regards the 2021 results, with knock-ons in terms of students/parents being disappointed.

This bring us nicely to the big question I have seen a number of people ask, which is 3 months behind who or what?     Is it 3 months behind where teachers think they would be had Covid19 not arisen?   A prediction based on a predication doesn’t provide me with much confidence as to its statistical reliability.   Is it three months behind in terms of curriculum content covered at the predicted rate that content is covered?   Again this suffers given it relies on predicated rate of coverage of materials plus could the content be covered at a faster rate but in less depth possibly?

Maybe this issue is an opportunity to reassess our assumptions and to question our current approach regarding education and how it is assessed or are we simply going to accept that this is the way things are done around here and that any changes should be limited and only in maintaining the status quo? I believe we have reached a fork in the road, however I worry that we may look to take the route which looks easier.