Cheery's country living adventure

South_coast

*Thinks twice about asking Cheery something she's already discussed millions of times, but decides to stick her oar in anyway* Have you identified where they're getting in? Or is it part of the ongoing work? 

Karmacat

As a vegetarian, I'm soft about four legged creatures too ... I love mice in particular, they're up there with owls, foxes, rabbits, badgers, that sort of thing but yes, in the house, its not such a good idea.  I love the idea of you driving to release them.

Also, I'm *very* impressed with you managing 5 hours of video calls, good heavens!  Even back in the day, I'd have found that stressful.  Did you have a drinkies afterwards?

Cheery_Daff

Ha, SC, I was being a bit defensive wasn't I?? Sorry! To be honest there are loads of places they could be getting in - we basically live in the middle of a field and have massive stone walls with loads of holes and cracks. I suspect it's always going to be a case of dealing with the mice rather than blocking up the holes, at least for the next ten years!

Anyway, our giant traps have just arrived! Just in time as there is currently a mouse somewhere in the depths of my study, munching it's way through some tissue paper or something. We have baited the first trap, and set it out a bit like a hamster cage, with a loo roll middle inside for it to hide in it's going to scare the living daylights out of me if it goes off - the door shuts with quite a bang! but hopefully if we catch this one we'll be able to see properly how well it works and whether we need to change anything before leaving one overnight. 

As for video calls, yes KC they are rather exhausting, for all concerned but especially when you're teaching a screen full of blank boxes as nobody's switched their camera on. Which is fine, of course, I don't need them to - but it means you don't get the immediate feedback you would in a classroom, so it's not obvious if people haven't understood, or are bored. Of course you can ask, but often there's no response.

 I'm trying to be interactive, and make them DO things (and record separate lectures where it's just me talking, rather than doing those live), but it's pretty hard going - like the rest of us students sometimes want to effectively hide at the back and not say anything. Fine, but I'm sure there would also be complaining if all I did was talk AT them, and while they may hate interaction it does help them to learn, so there's a bit of a balance to strike and sometimes it's like pulling teeth, especially online...

Hey ho, onwards we forge...

ElmoR

Right there with you Cheery on the video calls, the round blank boxes  and the exhausting effort to promote a positive experience met with, well, nothing. No thumbs up. No cameras on. No chat in the chat box when you float a question

A colleague had some helpful tricks to share this afternoon, that I'm going to try next week: join the session early and when the first person shows up, ask them sweetly if they might possibly mind switching on their camera because you feel so down looking at a blank screen and it cheers you up to see another face, repeat when second person logs in, and she said that after that it seemed to become the norm that as others logged in, they also switched on their camera so as not to be the odd one out. I'm going to give this a go next week.

Parents with young people at uni - please let them know that their lecturers really do care about the quality of experience they are getting but that we are also human beings and find it so, so hard to perform our magic with passion when faced with a screen full of circles/initials!

Onwards indeed Cheery

ElmoR x

greenbee

I'm used to presenting (webinars, conference sessions, training, consultancy) via video and I guess because I've done it for so many years I'm not that bothered about whether people are on video. I do take a different approach to presentation vs. interactive workshops, but I'm not bothered about video. Using online conferencing does at least mean that I know who is talking which was much harder when we did it all by phone and people didn't think they needed to announce who was speaking. I can see that if you're not used to working remotely - either as the presenter or as the audience/participants - then it can take some time to get the hang of.

Do you have access to online polling tools either within your video conferencing tool or using something like mentimeter? Polling data can really help make things interactive - I try to do a poll fairly early on in a session (first 5-10 minutes) as it helps me get a feel for the audience and adjust my approach. I also like to theme my graphics (cats are good!) or throw in a very different image to illustrate a story if I'm working with boring data on other slides. Sometimes the images can act as triggers for more informal chat, which then relaxes people into interacting properly on the topic. 

rtandon27

Elmo & Greenbee - thanks so much for sharing your tips!  Like Cheery I spend a lot of my life these days  in video calls and am always looking to add a bit of interest to what can often be routine and boring!

Cheery_Daff

Yes, thank you for sharing your tips! 

I'm pretty used to video conferencing and don't have a problem with it (I've also done some remote work for about 10 years ) - but I'm not used to teaching a group of people who I'll be teaching regularly and who aren't really used to it themselves. I've been doing all kinds of polling, quizzes, activities etc with various groups this week, making them write things in shared documents etc - it's all fine and they will do those things - I do just miss the kind of non verbal feedback of having someone nodding (even if it's just one person!). Might get a nodding dog for my desk  

I suspect we're all just getting used to the tech, and to each other though - to be honest in the first week of any new year it's a struggle to get most of the new ones to say anything anyway as a lot of them are so terrified and unsure of what to expect. A few will at least smile though... They do tend to get more confident as they go along so hopefully that will happen this year too. It's just hard when you can't see who's looking a bit lost. 

I've got a nice quiz in Monday's classes - I spent forever writing and recording a lecture which I think (hope!!) explains some difficult concepts in a straightforward way, so we're going to have a very quick multiple choice definitions etc quiz to see what they remember before we go into activities. It's anonymous, and my final question asks who has actually watched my snazzy lecture I can SEE who has watched it from the system... but this year I'm not falling into the trap of just repeating all the info from the lecture in the seminar because people didn't go - not when it's recorded and they can watch it any time...

Got my first face to face sessions since February this week, and I have to say at the minute I'm more daunted about that!!

Cheery_Daff

Hmm, maybe this is part of the issue on reflection - we do have some kind of pastoral role as well, and it's not necessarily the *teaching* part that's the problem, but the relationship building. No eye contact, no quick stopping them in the corridor to check they're ok, no catching a bewildered look and being able to explain. Yes, I can tell them to get in touch if they're struggling, but there are always some who won't (and of course there were always some who wouldn't turn up to face to face stuff anyway so that's not changed!). 

Quite agree ANYTHING is better than large teleconferences though - I had a large meeting scheduled 2 days after lockdown and we did it by teleconference, 40 of us Nope. Did the same thing by video call this time round and it was 100 times better!

One mouse caught overnight in our new mouse hotel (so that's a total of three since yesterday afternoon) but no sign of any since... can't imagine we ONLY had three, but certainly not heard any in the loft tonight yet...

We'll see!

South_coast

I'm loving the idea of the mouse hotel - just make sure it's not tooooo nice, or it will definitely be the same ones coming back - I'm visualising it like some kind of YMCA 🤣!

And yes, I am singing the song to myself....😀

Staffordia

South_coast said:

I'm loving the idea of the mouse hotel - just make sure it's not tooooo nice, or it will definitely be the same ones coming back - I'm visualising it like some kind of YMCA 🤣!

And yes, I am singing the song to myself....😀

Evil SC, It's now on a loop through my head.  Will have to put the radio on to distract me.