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We've been getting some snow here, but not all that much accumulation because we're on the fringes of the current storm.
The last time that S and I went to the hardware store, I bought a watering can for my office.
With the slushy roads, I am grateful for the duck boots and the watering can. One can's worth was enough to wash off most of the worst of the slush, grime, and road salt before bringing my bike into my office.
I can't quite get everything that builds up inside the fenders, and there's still a little bit of residual grime, but this is a vast improvement over before. I am now tempted to get one of these watering cans for home use, too. We shut off the water to the hose for winter so it doesn't, well, you know. Watering cans. Who knew they would turn out to be so useful? Both for the bike and for rinsing rowing equipment.
--
I spent yesterday afternoon working on recording a prelab video for our first lab coming up next Tuesday - the follow-up to that video I linked to this past Wednesday. For the Thursday afternoon video recording I needed to be in the lab space itself so I could demonstrate how to work the instrumentation and software. We actually have 5 of the signal converter units, but unfortunately it sounds like the 5th software license has been used on a computer that got moved into an unrelated distant lab space, so I can't do useful things like set up the instrumentation in my office or split students up into 5 groups instead of 4. Grr.
If I could set up the instrumentation in my office, I could do things like record the video without a face mask on, and use my work desktop computer for recordings and editing. Instead, in the lab I have to use my personal laptop, which has much less memory available. But then S gave me a thumb drive that says it holds 128 GB, so I thought, okay, let's try recording to the thumb drive.
And that brings us to the "crying" part of yesterday afternoon.
My first set of takes, I realized during editing that everything on the computer screen that I was filming was way too small to see in the film. Also because it was my first take, I spent too much time being all "blah blah blah" and the resulting video was longer than I wanted.
So, back to the lab for a second set of takes. But then, once I wrapped that up, put everything away, and started in on editing, I discovered that there were glitches in the videos I'd recorded, such that the editing software wedged on both my laptop and on my desktop 6 minutes into the 12-minute recording (after I tried switching to the desktop).
Thankfully I eventually found that if I just stitched together the 3 parts from the second set of takes, the resulting video actually plays with just one small unimportant hiccup.
S also says that mEncoder will repair these kinds of recording glitches, but that sends me down the rabbit hole of trying to remember enough mEncoder command syntax to do what I'm trying to accomplish.
I'm hoping to continue recording pre-lab videos this semester because if the students actually watch them then we will be able to use our in-person time much more efficiently, thus reducing our risks associated with sharing airspace in the lab.
But this is definitely a reminder that I absolutely DO NOT WANT to try and record a bunch of lecture videos again this semester, no matter how much the students may want them. They just take way too much time that I don't get paid for.
--
About 2 weeks ago I had a student contact me to find out if it would be okay for them to miss 1 lecture per week so they can do some sort of volunteer activity that has a 1-day 12-hour obligation. They also wanted to know whether lectures would be video recorded so they could keep up with the material they would miss.
My initial reaction to this kind of request is to just ignore it, because this is the kind of request that makes a professor angry. Eventually I responded to tell them that I would NOT be recording lectures, but that they could potentially ask a classmate to record lectures for them if they felt that it was appropriate to go that route with their life. But then we run into equity issues, right? I guess in prehistoric times students created their own audio recordings.
In any case, I am going to address this point during our first lecture period by stating that I will allow students to make recordings of lectures (video and/or audio, up to them) but that I can't and won't be in charge of it. I might help them with posting the videos so they're accessible to all students, but the bulk of the effort is on them.
I just hope that the majority of students will continue to show up in person. I guess if they don't we'll just switch to a remote format or something.
We shall see. Most Animal Physiology students tend to be well-motivated, and by now my guess is that they have an increased appreciation for the benefits of in-person learning opportunities. It's the ones who aren't who tend to think they can get away with skipping lecture that then fail.
The last time that S and I went to the hardware store, I bought a watering can for my office.
With the slushy roads, I am grateful for the duck boots and the watering can. One can's worth was enough to wash off most of the worst of the slush, grime, and road salt before bringing my bike into my office.
I can't quite get everything that builds up inside the fenders, and there's still a little bit of residual grime, but this is a vast improvement over before. I am now tempted to get one of these watering cans for home use, too. We shut off the water to the hose for winter so it doesn't, well, you know. Watering cans. Who knew they would turn out to be so useful? Both for the bike and for rinsing rowing equipment.
--
I spent yesterday afternoon working on recording a prelab video for our first lab coming up next Tuesday - the follow-up to that video I linked to this past Wednesday. For the Thursday afternoon video recording I needed to be in the lab space itself so I could demonstrate how to work the instrumentation and software. We actually have 5 of the signal converter units, but unfortunately it sounds like the 5th software license has been used on a computer that got moved into an unrelated distant lab space, so I can't do useful things like set up the instrumentation in my office or split students up into 5 groups instead of 4. Grr.
If I could set up the instrumentation in my office, I could do things like record the video without a face mask on, and use my work desktop computer for recordings and editing. Instead, in the lab I have to use my personal laptop, which has much less memory available. But then S gave me a thumb drive that says it holds 128 GB, so I thought, okay, let's try recording to the thumb drive.
And that brings us to the "crying" part of yesterday afternoon.
My first set of takes, I realized during editing that everything on the computer screen that I was filming was way too small to see in the film. Also because it was my first take, I spent too much time being all "blah blah blah" and the resulting video was longer than I wanted.
So, back to the lab for a second set of takes. But then, once I wrapped that up, put everything away, and started in on editing, I discovered that there were glitches in the videos I'd recorded, such that the editing software wedged on both my laptop and on my desktop 6 minutes into the 12-minute recording (after I tried switching to the desktop).
Thankfully I eventually found that if I just stitched together the 3 parts from the second set of takes, the resulting video actually plays with just one small unimportant hiccup.
S also says that mEncoder will repair these kinds of recording glitches, but that sends me down the rabbit hole of trying to remember enough mEncoder command syntax to do what I'm trying to accomplish.
I'm hoping to continue recording pre-lab videos this semester because if the students actually watch them then we will be able to use our in-person time much more efficiently, thus reducing our risks associated with sharing airspace in the lab.
But this is definitely a reminder that I absolutely DO NOT WANT to try and record a bunch of lecture videos again this semester, no matter how much the students may want them. They just take way too much time that I don't get paid for.
--
About 2 weeks ago I had a student contact me to find out if it would be okay for them to miss 1 lecture per week so they can do some sort of volunteer activity that has a 1-day 12-hour obligation. They also wanted to know whether lectures would be video recorded so they could keep up with the material they would miss.
My initial reaction to this kind of request is to just ignore it, because this is the kind of request that makes a professor angry. Eventually I responded to tell them that I would NOT be recording lectures, but that they could potentially ask a classmate to record lectures for them if they felt that it was appropriate to go that route with their life. But then we run into equity issues, right? I guess in prehistoric times students created their own audio recordings.
In any case, I am going to address this point during our first lecture period by stating that I will allow students to make recordings of lectures (video and/or audio, up to them) but that I can't and won't be in charge of it. I might help them with posting the videos so they're accessible to all students, but the bulk of the effort is on them.
I just hope that the majority of students will continue to show up in person. I guess if they don't we'll just switch to a remote format or something.
We shall see. Most Animal Physiology students tend to be well-motivated, and by now my guess is that they have an increased appreciation for the benefits of in-person learning opportunities. It's the ones who aren't who tend to think they can get away with skipping lecture that then fail.
