MacGyver-ing Educational Videos in the Pandemic
In the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic has forced most educators to dive into digital ways to teaching. Beyond just having Zoom sessions for lecture, using video cameras in new and creative ways is something I’ve been exploring. Back when I was living in Austin this past summer, I had a really sweet video set up at my desk in my office room. I used it constantly for my online Arduino and SPIKE Prime workshops, where getting real-time up-close views of electronics and mechanisms is a must for teaching kiddos. I even used it for my lectures when I remotely taught Modern Physics at LASA high school at the beginning of the school year, because writing real notes on a whiteboard is so much nicer than trying to draw on that stupid Zoom whiteboard thing.
The basic setup consisted of a smartphone on a bendy arm, attached to a tall standing lamp next to my desk. I was able to keep the face-down camera still and steady, and at a good height above my desk. Under it, I had a large whiteboard that took up the whole space that the camera could see. All I had to do was log into my zoom calls with that smartphone in addition to my regular computer sitting in front of me, and voila!, I had two screens in my workshops — one for me to talk to the kids and see them, and the other to see what I was doing at my desk. It was lovely and so easy to use.
But now, I’ve been living at my mom’s place in Pennsylvania keeping her company during these extra-rough pandemic/winter blues months while my husband and I look to buy a home closer to our jobs in the Boston area. It’s been tough living out of a suitcase and being a guest in someone else’s home, and I’ve been longing to have a great video station set up again. Last night, I decided to see how tough it would be to set up a temporary video workspace and record something. It took about two hours of brainstorming and trial & error before I found the right combination of improvised tools to make it work, but by golly, it worked!
The final set up was comprised of an iPad on a tripod, with the tripod held horizontally on a piece of furniture meant to be an end table. The end table was up on the dining room table, and the tripod was held down and counter balanced by a cardboard box full of books. I used a bendy light as a spotlight since the dining room light fixture wasn’t bright enough on its own, and I placed a whiteboard under the whole structure to provide a neutral background. I want to give a HUGE shout out to my husband, who used his skills in engineering, designing, improvising, and film making to aid me in a million ways — I couldn’t have done this without him. Also, he was tall enough to view what was going on on the iPad screen and hit the start and stop buttons for me, which was crucial. Once again, this short lady is SO glad she married a tall guy.
The end result was a really neat time lapse video of my assembly of a robot designed by LASA robotics team students — this is the robot we’re using in our remote workshops I mentioned earlier. But I gotta say, the effort involved in setting this up was huge and time consuming. I’m glad I know that I have a way to do this if I want to create some more videos while I’m here, but it’s certainly not an ideal situation. I dream of designing my own permanent video station in our new house in Boston. Hopefully that dream will become a reality soon.