The Open University, eSTEeM Conference, 25 April 2017 Summary Find out how the OpenSTEM lab can be used to support remote access to tutor-led practical work in robotics and other technologies. Abstract As befits its title, Technologies in practice (TM129) takes a practical focus to learning, with up to 50% of study time having a practical aspect. The tutorial program should support this and in the past some tutors have found innovative ways of bringing practical demonstrations or exercises into their face-to-face sessions, for example demonstrating a robot vacuum cleaner or setting up an ad-hoc network of students’ laptops. Producing online tutorials with an equivalent practical focus is a challenge. The creation of the OpenSTEM lab provides an opportunity to meet this challenge. Part of the HEFCE and OU funding for the OpenSTEM lab has provided five large ‘Baxter’ robots which will be accessible remotely as well as two which will be used at residential school. The lab also provides racked equipment bays for smaller remote access experiments, such as those being developed for the electronics curriculum. For a large population module such as TM129, this infrastructure provides an opportunity to roll-out practical-focused synchronous tutorial events to all students, provided the activities are well designed and scripted so that they can be delivered by a number of tutors. In this presentation I will review the possible use-cases for remote practical activities, discuss some of the technological and pedagogical challenges, and review progress towards delivering engaging practical activities at a distance.

1. Remote practical-focused tutorials
Jon Rosewell
Computing & Communications, STEM
eSTEeM Conference, 25 April 2017

2. Baxter robots
Part of OpenSTEM Lab
HEFCE and OU joint funded

3. TM129 Technologies in practice
• 30-pt, first level
• Three blocks
–Robotics
–Networking
–Linux
• Large cohorts
–October: ~1600
–February: ~600

4. Practical activity at a distance
• Home experiment kit
• Student’s own kit
• Simulation
• Virtual reality
• Remote recorded experiment
• Remote live experiment
• Demonstration
• Recorded video

5. Video on the web – stream?
Viewers Lag
1 / many 0 / long
1 / many ~ 3 s
1 <0.1s
1-5 ~ 0.5 s
5 + 50 ~ 0.5 s
500 30 s
Thousands 30 s

6. Use cases for remote robot
Number Access Video lag Control Module
Student control 1 book <1 s bespoke T312 19J
Project student program 1 book <1 s std tools TM45* 18J?
Group program 3-5 book ~ 1 s bespoke / std tools T312 19J
Observe autonomous 1-200 drop-in 15-30 s none / bespoke TM129 17J
Tutor-led demo 1 + 20 LEM <1 s + 10-30 s std tools TM129 17J?
Labcast 20-200 LEM 10-30 s local TM129 16J

7. Labcast recordings
TM129-16J http://live.kmi.open.ac.uk/webcast/a19d2x135
TM129-17B http://live.kmi.open.ac.uk/webcast/3c9c6C148

8. How many watched?

9. How many watched?

10. Did you watch the event?

11. Why not?

12. Will you join live next time?

13. Preferences?
live
short (15min)
daytime
weekend
active
author
text chat
recorded
long (1hr)
evening
weekday
listen
tutor
microphone

14. Attitudes?

15. Attitudes?
I was able to use the interface
I was able to hear and see OK
I found the chat window useful
I thought session was the right length
I found the session useful
I enjoyed this session
I would recommend to other students

16. Chat comments
Really enjoyed
it
thanks for the
demo, it's an
awesome bit
of kit!!
Thanks for having us,
this was very interesting
Useful session
Tutor: I was at your TM129 Baxter
demo last night and just wanted to
say how brilliant I thought it was. The
students were really engaged with it
and found it inspirational!

17. Questionnaire comments
Seeing a live demonstration of a robot and having someone
knowledgeable in the area, that could answer questions near the
end was very helpful. I like the idea of the widgets and being able to
interactively answer questions that the answers got explained
further by the person presenting.
Seeing the practical, real world use of robotics really helped me
grasp the wider purpose of what I was learning. I found that giving
the course material a more tangible context helped me to engage
with it more strongly.
Having now watched the recording … I wish there had been some
publicity…. I did receive the invite …, but I had the impression it was
another generic video … that wasn't that relevant to the studies.
Having now seen it, this was great!

18. Thanks!
Demonstrations at 2:30pm in Venables
Jon.Rosewell@open.ac.uk