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A ReMOOCable Experience: Teaching Computer Networking to the Masses
Nick FeamsterGeorgia Tech
Co-Conspirators:Vrushali Moghe (Course Designer),
Muhammad Shahbaz (TA)
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Talk Outline
• Why did I decide to teach a MOOC?
• How the MOOC was developed?
• Who is taking the MOOC?– What does it mean to “take” a MOOC?
• Lessons Learned
• “Suggestions”
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Why Did I Decide to Teach a MOOC?
• Develop an informed opinion– Lots of “hype”– Many opinions about MOOCs (most
uninformed)
• Pedagogy– I have long thought that “lecturing is
dead”– Chance to explore new ways of
teaching (forcing function)
• Exposure (“Fame”)– Wanted to plant a stake on “Software
Defined Networking”
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My MOOC: Software Defined Networking
• Extremely hot, new topic– No existing “real world” courses on the topic
(yet)– A chance to develop an archetype course
(and material) that others might use in their own courses
– I wanted to be copied. This seemed like a good way.
• Boutique topic means that there were no “set in stone” ways of teaching the course– Easier to think outside the box, since there
was no existing material anywhere
http://blog.sflow.com/2012/05/software-defined-networking.html
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What the Instructor Sees
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How Was the Course Developed?• Course lesson plan, with learning objectives• Top down design: – Figure out modules, continue subdividing until you
get 10-minute “lectures”• Production– Lecture Filming and Production– Assignments– Syllabus
• Operation– Forums
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Filming Take 1: Studio
• Started in a studio at Georgia Tech• This quickly proved intractable– Studio is distracting. Lots of people watching
makes recording nerve-wracking.– Studio time is limited, contentious, and expensive.– Post-production quality was not to my liking.– Faculty members need scheduling autonomy.
• A lot different from a TV interview!
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Filming Take 2: Camtasia
• Studio people will claim that quality suffers.• I believe this is bogus, for several reasons.– People can take their time recording, take breaks, record
when they are “in the zone”.– Screen captures from a laptop are easy.– Recording quality from a good laptop is quite fine.– Nobody has ever complained about the quality of the
recordings. Content is what matters most.
• Takes a little getting used to at first (looking at the camera, etc.)
• You have to do your own editing.
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Producing Lectures in Camtasia
• General rule: 10-15 minutes of lecture == 2 hours of recording and editing– This does not include time to prep slides, etc.
• This is way different than a usual lecture!– Biggest lesson: Silence is quite easy to edit!– Stumbling is OK: Just say the same thing again– You can also “practice” while the video is rolling
• Need to find a quiet, well-lit location• Takes patience, but it starts to be quite fun
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General Lecture Production Process• Determine learning objectives• Research the topic • Write slides– General format: Summary/outline, 7-10 content slides,
wrap-up
• Plan demonstrations– Plan on-screen landscape
• Record (one sitting for consistency…big challenge!)• Edit and export• Upload• Note: You can prepare lectures out-of-order!
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New Modes of Lecture Production• On-screen demonstrations
– Videos lend themselves very nicely to on-screen demonstrations
– User can see things in “life size”– User can pause, rewind, etc. Very
helpful tutorials for working through assignments
• Interviews with luminaries in the field– Google “On Air” Hangouts– Can be done anywhere, and people are
willing!– Process: Invite, script questions, send,
revise. Stay roughly on script
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Lessons from Lecture Production• Lots of money is not needed. Students want content,
clearly delivered. Camtasia works.• A 45–60-minute lecture is about 15 minutes of well-
polished video. Content distills well.• Lecturer is always “ahead” of the students. This
creates interesting time-shifting effects, with advantages and disadvantages.
• MOOCs are asynchronous and autonomous for the student. This is a big reason for their success. Production should be the same.
• The medium may not replace the lecture hall, but it is way more efficient for certain content.
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How Was the Course Developed?• Course lesson plan, with learning objectives• Top down design: – Figure out modules, continue subdividing until you
get 10-minute “lectures”• Production– Lecture Filming and Production– Assignments– Syllabus
• Operation– Forums
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Developing Quizzes: Stick to the Basics
• Problem: The platform basically stinks at anything that’s not multiple choice or simple numerical answer.– Short answers become massive regular expressions– …will likely improve as the software gets better
• Stick to multiple choice if possible• Main differences from a normal MC quiz
– Helps to write up explanations for each option– Need to figure out if students can re-take the quiz, and if so, how many
times
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Developing Assignments is Hard• Wanted to teach concepts and programming– Not a “heavy-duty” programming course, but
some concepts are best explained and learned through short code exercises.
• Code submission possible, but grading must be done on regular expression evaluation of output
• Problem: How to guarantee uniform programming environments?
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Uniform Environment: Virtual Machine
• Asked students to:– Install VirtualBox (or equivalent) virtual machine emulator– Download 64-bit VM image that had everything pre-
packaged (no asking students to install software themselves). Kind of like a lab at home.
• This has generally worked. A few problems– VM is huge (~1 GB), so have to get it right the first time– Not everyone has a 64-bit machine– Certain performance, even when run in an emulator, varies
depending on underlying hardware
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How Was the Course Developed?• Course lesson plan, with learning objectives• Top down design: – Figure out modules, continue subdividing until you
get 10-minute “lectures”• Production– Lecture Filming and Production– Assignments– Syllabus
• Operation– Forums
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Communicating with 10,000 Students
• I feared absolute disaster– Small glitches in
assignments in a classroom of 50 students create mayhem.
– I feared that I would be spending my life answering minutia in online forums.
• Thankfully, this did not happen!• Lesson: Giving an assignment
to 10,000 students in a MOOC is easier than giving it to 50 in a classroom!
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Why Assignments Can Scale• First of all, you do your best to work
out the bugs, mostly out of fear – We attempted everything that
we assigned, sometimes on multiple platforms
• More importantly: Self-selection!– Everyone doing the assignments
wants to be there– This makes a huge difference– People not only fix issues
themselves, they rewrite documentation
• Caveat: Course difficulties vs. platform difficulties are currently hard to tease apart. Some of this is “user error”.
A student’s blog post describing part of the assignment setup in detail…
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Who is Taking The Course?
• 50,000 people registered
• 10,000 people active each week
• 1,000-3,000 watching lectures
• 500 turn in programming assignments
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Some Feedback
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Lesson #1: MOOCs Change the Game for Instruction
• Everyone is watching you– In seven years, never got feedback (or
acknowledgment) about on-campus course– Now, everyone’s eyes are on you– Huge pressure to do a good job
• MOOCs are a “forcing function” for introducing new media into the classroom– I wouldn’t have thought to do “on air” interviews for a
classroom; people would likely decline them anyhow– I will likely re-use some MOOC content in the “real”
classroom
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Lesson #2: Time Investment Pays Off• Typical Course Creation (45-minute lecture)
– 1-2 hours to create slides– 1 hour to deliver the lecture– Number of students: 50-100– Total: 3 hours per lecture– … but then you have to do it again! (can’t save an awesome
lecture, students can’t rewatch, etc.)• MOOC Course Creation (10-minute video)
– 1-2 hours to create slides– 2-3 hours to produce the lecture– Total: 3-5 hours per lecture– Number of students: 500-100,000– … but, you have the archive. Can keep improving it, use it to
enhance in-classroom discussion, etc.
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Lesson #3: Certain Aspects of MOOCs Scale Surprisingly Well
• Lectures are watchable by thousands– The scale can be a motivator for guest lectures!
• Programming assignments can be graded automatically, if designed well
• Self-motivated, self-selected students fix glitches, help each other out
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Some Surprises
• The platform is “bare bones”– Wiki-style editing is not full-featured (e.g., no double-
indented lists)– Regular expression matching does not work well– Responses almost always are “DIY”– UI is horrible… perhaps a good HCI project?
• Copyright considerations appear to be different from normal classroom use (“fair use” may not apply)– People are making this up as they go along
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Conclusions
• Much of the focus of MOOCs has been its effects on students, universities, etc.
• But there is also an effect on instruction.• Instructors of MOOCs will also become better
classroom instructors.• Teaching is moving to the forefront of research
universities, too. This is a good thing for everyone involved.