21 minute read
ZOOMING IN ON VIRTUAL CLASSES AND EVENTS
ZOOMING IN ON VIRTUAL CLASSES AND EVENTS
by Farina Zeb
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Nova Labs and its fearless instructors and hosts quickly adapted to offering virtual classes and events over Zoom during the pandemic. Let’s look at the topics surrounding the transition from on-site to online!
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Need for Virtual Classes and Events
Nova Labs closed its doors March 16th with no certainty as to when its doors would reopen. All classes and events ceased, and our members no longer had access to use Nova Labs tools and resources on-site to support their continued learning and MakerQuest, a commitment to make something they don’t yet have the skills for by learning to make it.
At the time of the lockdown, many of our members were vocal that they would stick with Nova Labs through the pandemic by continuing to pay member dues in hopes that Nova Labs will be operational post-pandemic. Member retention and improving member experience have always been a focus for Nova Labs, but became more important during the pandemic for our nonprofit, all-volunteer organization. The leadership therefore committed itself to continuing to support members in their enjoyment of making things. Virtual classes was recognized as a means for engaging our members and providing opportunities for continued learning.
With our members accustomed to classes and events on-site, we needed to become early adopters in exploring virtual class development and execution. Our ability to adapt, take risks, and be resilient was also dependent on our willingness to step outside of our comfort zones. The worst that could happen, we thought, is that it might not work. Because virtual classes were new to Nova Labs, there was plenty of room to learn and experiment to see what works and what doesn’t work. Limited time and resources in a volunteer environment were expectedly our biggest constraints, but they did not prevent us from moving forward.
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Fearless in the Exploration of Online Teaching
The same week that Nova Labs closed its doors, a new Slack channel was created solely for events/class announcements, including Patrick Waters’ home makerspace tour; Natalie Abrams’ Professional Artist lecture series; Bo Wernick’s Origami Soda Can class; Siobhan Williams and Adam Grant’s KitchenAid Stand Mixer re-assembly demonstration; Pat Marstall’s home makerspace tour; Nick Carter’s electronic circuits class; Karen James’ Eggery class; Karen Shumway’s Soap Making Workshop; Samer Najia’s Scale Model Basics series; Bryce Peterson’s PCB Electronics Circuit Design classes; Gari Jimenez-Lugo’s Blacksmith series and additional classes that continued into April and May, with classes and events increasing in numbers each week.
The instructors and hosts have been working really hard to develop these offerings, and as June begins, Nova Labs has hosted more than 50 virtual classes and events as a result of the collective effort!
Although Nova Labs’ doors are closed, opportunities continue to knock for new instructors and hosts to start their teaching and event hosting journeys. The most prominent and commonly shared reason for making this effort is the opportunity to serve Nova Labs by sharing their knowledge, skills, and time with the community. Some instructors even donate back their earnings from student fees.
Starting out, instructors did not have reassurance that their classes would go smoothly and without hiccups. Technical limitations of their hardware, including microphones, headsets, laptops, cameras, and/or cellphones also surfaced. Identifying these limitations, Bryce Peterson offered a free instructor training session. In addition, Jennyfer Peterson developed a process for loaning equipment such as tripods and webcams to instructors.
Numerous instructors and hosts also took it upon themselves to research and purchase the hardware best suited for them and the format of their class. As they experimented , they set a precedent and standard for similar classes to follow. Gari first introduced the use of OBS Studio (Open Broadcaster Software) in his virtual Blacksmith series to show multiple camera views on one screen. The same setup was then used by Patrick during his woodworking classes. With each class, each instructor became more advanced in their presentation and delivery of educational content. They continue to develop the sophistication of their online class delivery.
Initially it was unimaginable that shop-specific classes could be taught online if they involve tools. Patrick stepped up as a woodshop instructor and figured out an effective method of teaching the Nova Labs community despite the many complexities involved in teaching woodworking online. Similarly, Gari volunteered to offer continued advanced learning through his Blacksmith series, offering over 10 separate advanced Blacksmith classes, all of which involve learning how to use specific tools and understand advanced topics. Nick Carter utilized TinkerCAD in virtual instruction to provide students with a handson learning experience just as they would have with real circuits and microcontrollers.
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Using Zoom
Nova Labs has been using the Zoom cloud video conferencing platform in order to provide group collaboration and online instruction. Zoom provides instructors and hosts the capability to share their screens, use OBS to live stream in order to offer multiple camera angles, use chat and microphones for communication, and leverage additional features for heightened collaboration such as poll questions and remote annotation. To help limit the chance of zoom-bombing, we require passwords for Nova Labs virtual classes and events. Our staff also created a dedicated Zoom account for events, which increased the maximum number of classes and events that can be hosted at the same time. This platform has been helpful in the success of virtual classes and events.
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Student Participation
Many students have the habit to approach class instruction online just as they would in class on-site: to not interrupt the instructor and hold the questions until the end of class or until the instructor asks for them. While instructors don’t expect all students to participate and ask questions, many of them hope that the students do not feel reluctant to speak up. Typically if there is silence or no questions asked, instructors continue on with the lesson. As noted by Pat Marstall, Blacksmith Steward and virtual class instructor, “I think the biggest issue is that you can’t ‘read the room’. You can’t judge body language or facial expressions to see if you are resonating with the audience. Most folks have their cameras off and mics muted.” This has been observed by many instructors during their classes. Although the chat feature has been a popular method of communication student-to-student, numerous students have expressed in their feedback that not all instructors make use of the chat feature and check the chat for questions. The chat feature may not be easily accessible to the instructor during instruction depending on the class being taught and whether the class is lecture-based, demonstration, or hands-on where the instructor is not within close proximity to the device connected to Zoom. Prior to starting each class, it has been helpful for the instructor to share their preferences for communication using the microphone and the chat.
As we all adapt to the virtual classroom and recognize how interaction in virtual classes is different from on-site classes, both students and instructors are building new habits in order to take advantage of the many benefits of online education.
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Education/Events Staff Commitment
The primary focus of our Education/Events staff has been to provide instructor care and support instructors and event hosts.
Although the shift to virtual classes and events provided little time for planning and preparation, the process for submitting classes and events has not changed and the class and event workflow that we developed prior to the lockdown is still in use. Instructors and hosts submit the class/ event request forms accessible from the Nova Labs website contact pages. What has evolved, however, is the class development process and the number of checkpoints involved. Instructors are no longer required to have approval from stewards in order for their online class requests to be processed by Education/Events staff. Seemingly a small step in the workflow, it used to take up to 6 days before we would receive steward approval for class proposals. With classes and events being offered virtually, the instructors and hosts submit their request online. The events team then reviews the submission, provides feedback or asks for additional information, and the class is usually posted the same week. Practice sessions with the instructors can be held in the weeks leading up to the class if requested.
Online instruction has made it feasible for the events team to join every class and see how the instructors are doing firsthand in order to better assess how we can continue to support them and identify the resources they need. Shifting to online classes has also provided scalability in terms of how many classes we can offer. With no time lost in commuting, there is increased availability to answer questions and provide support remotely, moderate classes if needed, and address any issues with joining and starting virtual classes. Even if two to three classes and events take place in one night, having them online makes it very easy to join all of them. Overall, this has been beneficial to Education/Events staff in their ability to support instructors.
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Connecting with the Community Online
One Tuesday evening in mid-March on the way to Nova Labs to meet an instructor, I was listening to an NPR interview of Kevin Nguyen’s book ‘New Waves’. The author explained that the novel explores how well people really know one another online and how well people form true intimacy and connection in a tech-obsessed world. The discussion touched on whether friendships and connections with someone you’ve never met is more authentic or less, pointing out that although you can’t look someone in their eyes online or read their non-verbal cues, unless they have camera enabled, you also don’t jump to conclusions based on stereotypes about their race, age, background or other stereotype.
Just a few days later, Nova Labs was locked down. So when we began working with instructors to post virtual classes, I thought more about the authenticity of online connections in the context of the Nova Labs community, the online instructors teaching in the community, and my interaction with instructors and students throughout the virtual class development and delivery process. I’ve always admired our Nova Labs community and its members for how quickly trust is shared and the willingness to be a friend and share helpful knowledge with other members through Slack, although they may not have met one another in person. This hasn’t lessened during the lockdown. Even with more users joining the Slack channels each day, there is still an overall kindness and generosity towards one another to share time and knowledge.
This has been two-fold with the online instructors. For example, Nick Carter’s electronics series classes are scheduled for every Wednesday from 7-9pm, but if you join the Zoom session at almost 10pm, you’ll find the instructor and students are still deep in discussion to understand and measure complex circuits.
As with the virtual class students, I haven’t met all of our online instructors in person but I have enjoyed learning about them these past few months in our Slack and Zoom conversations, in our discussions of the various challenges with online instruction, and when sitting in virtual classes and watching the instructors have a great time teaching. I could say I have learned more about each instructor through the virtual class development process in the last few months than I did while onsite at Nova Labs; that understanding has felt every bit authentic.
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Recordings
A known capability with the Zoom platform for virtual classes and events is the ability to record sessions as needed. Once recorded, the raw files can be reviewed and disseminated. Whether the records should be disseminated for free or by sale, and whether the recordings should be shared, and with who, has been a point of discussion between Education/Events staff and the community ever since virtual classes and events were first introduced. We are continuing to evaluate with the community how the recorded content can be handled in a way that is fair and beneficial to both students and instructors, and serves the best interest of Nova Labs.
Although there are many advantages of recording classes, there are also many concerns we think about surrounding the handling of the recordings. For example, dissemination of class records may affect the class attendance rate for repeating classes. I can empathize with an instructor that spends countless hours and resources in preparing for a class, only to find that students do not attend and the class must be cancelled.
There is also the concern about privacy. The concern is not the privacy of the instructor who opted to have the class recorded; rather it is that of the students. Although permission from each individual shown and/or heard in the video would be needed, Nova Labs discourages recording classes and events that show the faces and names of minors. This also takes into consideration that a video recording may be considered an education record under certain circumstances per the Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) which documents strict rules around how education record videos and images can be accessed, stored and shared, and certain rights are given to parents with respect to their children’s education records.
In obtaining permission in advance to record, students and instructors would be made aware that the session would be recorded. What becomes of the classroom and event discourse when students and attendees are informed that the session will be recorded? Classroom and event conversations typically occur unscripted. However, the opinions expressed in a recorded classroom and event could potentially become limited in scope if the students and attendees feel a need to speak differently and more cautiously during the session at the risk that the what they say in the recording could be taken out of context and potentially used against them by someone who doesn’t have good intent.
In an effort to protect the interests of instructors producing content for virtual classes, I asked the Nova Labs instructors in the #instructors-hosts Slack channel through a poll to share if they would be interested in contributing to a Nova Labs library of online class recordings and having their classes recorded.
17 instructors responded with the following:
While this poll did not factor in whether there would be monetary benefits in sharing recordings, discussions ensued in the channel regarding monetization of recordings and identifying ownership and royalties between Nova Labs, the instructors, and the camera operators and video editors. This will be an on-going and evolving conversation as Nova Labs considers the benefits and drawbacks the benefits and drawbacks of recording both virtual and on-site classes. What are your thoughts on the topic of disseminating class and event recordings?
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Virtual Events
In addition to classes, a number of members reached out to education/events staff proposing to host Nova Labs virtual events. These virtual events feed the community’s longing to reconnect and socialize with their Nova Labs community in a time that is both physically and emotionally trying. The events serve to engage members of the community, provide an opportunity to relax, and be reminded about the joy of making, connecting, collaborating, and sharing.
Such events include Mending Monday, Kinetic Sculpture Build Team, and meetups for Raspberry Pi and Arduino, and the 3D Printer interest groups, as well as the upcoming Members Show and Tell event. Nova Labs community members have also hosted events from their homes with Paul Chase, Samer Najia, Patrick Waters, Patrick and Marstall providing tours of their home shops and makerspaces, and the Nova Labs community experiencing their first virtual dinner party.
On May 15th on the #events_announcements channel on Slack I asked the Nova Labs community
“In addition to continued virtual classes, what type of new Nova Labs community virtual meetups would you be interested in joining?”
Areas with no responses included virtual readaloud and book club, and health/well-being. We intend to take this information and work with our community members develop these events that members are interested in participating in.
Virtual Event: Mending Monday
With Sally Byers and Jeanne Marshall reintroducing Mending Monday in May as virtual sessions, one could wonder how the sessions would be different than they had been pre-Covid. The initial virtual Mending Monday provided an opportunity for members of the community to share their mending projects and ask questions. Members would share their projects and talk through the issues they would run into when attempting to mend. It also provided an opportunity to check in with one another, how is everyone during this pandemic?
Sally then shared a proposal for a subsequent session in late May, describing that the first virtual session had led them to reflect on mending in various contexts and the exploration of meditative mending. Sally noted that although the emphasis on the virtual Mending Monday session would be a little more on the meditative and contemplative side, it would not be a guided meditation. The group would mend what they need to mend but members would also discuss what it means to mend in this culture, exploring the question: What in your world needs mending? We would discuss the relative merits of visible versus invisible mending, also prompting a reflection on what the intentions behind mending are. Jeanne asked, is the intention to show something was broken and repaired through visible mending, to show that it was never broken and repaired, or to transcend the original, adding a level of ornament and expression of creativity that adds to the piece [beyond its original state]?
Prior to the Mending Monday session on May 25th, Jeanne also shared the Yes! Magazine article “In a Breaking World, Mending Takes on More Meaning” authored by Ruth Terry, for the community to reflect on. The author explores the concept that mending worn garments is considered a quiet revolutionary act that restores integrity to an object and our relationship with it. The article goes on to describe that we’re in a time when Coronavirus exposes all the things we knew were broken down and we could never find the time, money, or political will to fix. Adding to those are the things that were broken during the pandemic, including our cities, our bodies, our minds, and our hearts. The article explores how Coronavirus also reveals opportunities available for fixing those things through the act of mending.
Members of the Nova Labs community are invited to return for the next session of meditative mending to be announced in the month of June.
Virtual Event: Nova Labs Virtual Dinner Party
Curiosity started cooking when a Nova Labs Dinner Party event was announced at the beginning of April. How would a community dinner party be possible given the social distancing recommendations and stay at home orders? On April 24th, hosts Patrick Waters, Jeanne Marshall, Jim Sweeney, Nick Carter, and Adam Winsor used their magic and collaborative efforts to surprise the community with Nova Labs’ first dinner party and provide the full dinner party experience…online.
“Every wondered how to throw a class dinner party?” Patrick described. “This isn’t the event for you. This is the event to get that slow-cooked, made-with-love, only-found-with-friends type of mind-altering taste buds melting, sugar-high-giving night you remember from your childhood.” Patrick clarified, “This isn’t a night about food, it’s a night about giving the best of yourself to family. And we cook a little.” Not falling short of expectations, the virtual dinner party experience was memorable and unique for the Nova Labs community.
At 6:45 PM approached and dinner guests began to trickle into the Zoom session, they took ease in the ambiance set by the music selection, each track intimating the dishes that will be prepared and served by their dinner party hosts. At 7 PM sharp, the guests watched and waited in anticipation as they were brought to the front door of Patrick’s house. Greeted with a friendly “Howdy!” from the host in a Shinyribs shirt and cowboy hat, the guests watched as Patrick motioned for them to step inside his home. Guests virtually followed behind Patrick as he led them into the kitchen where he thanked everyone, described what it meant for everyone to be joining the dinner party, and introduced his kids who were skillfully operating the cameras. The dinner party continued through the night, switching between homes and dishes, stories and reflections, discussion of cooking techniques and experiences, laughter and witty banter. The hosts served guests platters of inspirations and aspirations. It was also heartfelt to see how each of the hosts’ families were involved in the production and success of the dinner party. Guests would watch as tiny hands reach over to grab pieces of gimbap as Adam continued to cut new rolls, each slice disappearing in the blink of an eye. We got to learn more about our community members as they joined us from within their homes while preparing and sharing their favorite dishes and beverages.
“This is the big question,” Patrick interjected halfway through the dinner party. “You don’t cook because it tastes good, you cook because something happens when you do it. I know for me, it’s the only time that I’m going to get Lillian and the boys at the table at the same time, it’s the only time I get the whole family together. And that means a lot to me. It means a lot that I can sit down and get everyone together and, for whatever reason, that is what I love most about it.” Patrick went on to surprise each of the hosts with impromptu requests to share their emotional memories. “What is your favorite memory of cooking from your childhood?” Patrick asked, followed by questioning why hosts love making what they made. Hosts laughed as they were caught off guard, these were not the questions they were told to prepare for and had to be quick to dig out their memories and process them in front of the guests. The night wrapped up at 9:05 PM with talk of the next time the community would host another dinner party. The hosts quickly volunteered guests, each other and themselves; Jeanne will be making beignets so Sam Aparicio will be making paella, and Patrick volunteered Shane Smith to team up as Nova Labs’ barbeque aficionados.
Before each of the hosts and guests were thanked and goodbyes were exchanged, the community was invited to continue planning the next dinner party event and sharing their making journeys together on the #foodsmiths slack channel. Members of the Nova Labs community are invited to be a host or be a guest for the next virtual dinner party. Post your inquiries in the #foodsmiths channel for planning.
Virtual Class and Event Surveys
After observing the transition to online classes, Keith McGerald, Nova Labs co-founder shared “On the bright side, you guys have gotten all this online attendance stuff going so now we can attend even if we can’t get to the Lab. Remote attendance would bring more people or offer an alternative for people that aren’t feeling up to a trip to the Lab […] With two young kids, there are times when I can’t go [to the Lab] but I could attend from home.” When asked about Nova Labs areas for improvement observed over the years and to this day, Keith responded “For me, the biggest room for improvements have been remote attendance for meetings or “hands off” classes.”
I was interested in hearing more about our community’s experiences with online Nova Labs classes and how our virtual classes could be further improved which led me to process surveys to check in with our community’s students and instructors.
Students Survey Results
On May 15th I surveyed a sample of 30 students consisting of both Nova Labs members and non-members (guests and attendees) for their experiences with Nova Labs virtual classes, inquiring the following:
• Overall experience with Nova Labs virtual classes (Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair, Poor)
• Interest in teaching (Yes, No) • Favorite and positive experiences with Nova Labs virtual classes
• Recommendations for improvement of Nova Labs virtual classes
• Recommendations for additional class offerings
The chart shows the number of virtual classes and events offered from Nova Labs’ lockdown through May 31st and students’ feedback on their experience.
Instructor Survey Results
On May 15th I surveyed each of the online instructors for their experiences with Nova Labs virtual classes and feedback for the education/ events staff. A few questions that were asked include:
Overall, how has your experience been with teaching Nova Labs virtual classes (Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair, Poor)
What has been one of your favorite and positive experiences from teaching a Nova Labs virtual class?
What specific equipment would you like for Nova Labs to acquire and loan for class instruction [that is not being loaned already]?
Based on the survey results returned by six (6) instructors, we observed that:
2 instructors had an “Excellent” experience with teaching Nova Labs virtual classes
2 had a “Very Good” experience
2 had a “Good” experience.
Instructors Q&A
Instructors were asked “What has been one of your favorite and positive experiences in teaching a Nova Labs virtual class?” Six (6) instructors responded with the following:
