On Sun, 7 Oct 2007, Michael Barr wrote:
Hi-tech whiteboards and even video-taping are out. I don't think we have any of the former and the one case that I know of a lecture that was video-taped (a fascinating lecture by Conway in the early '70s in which he showed how the game of Life allowed the simulation of self-reproducing Turing-power automata) seems to have disappeared without a trace. I will probably use a blackboard (or greenboard) and chalk, my favorite medium.
Hi Michael, Video-taping certainly is out, if it ever was in. Taping is non-interactive and just silly. Your attitude towards "Hi-tech whiteboards" sounds too hi-tech as my point indeed was to say what you say about your favourite medium. That is still also my favourite medium, but I accept to write or meet virtually in particular if my audience is a flight distance away. Something is lost when you go virtual, but you also win some. Do you resist virtual whiteboards per se, or would you be interested in trying out a session? Installation is less than 15 minutes, and once we are online, we could spend another 15 discussing idempotent functors extendable to monads where E-M and Kleisli coincide. The mouse is your chalk and your board colour is white. I've used it so much already over the last years so I cannot work without it anymore. I can supervise a student from my home or a hotel room in Tokyo, and nobody knows or even cares who's where. Cheers, Patrik PS And for those who didn't see my mail to Michael, here it is, and apologies to those who view this purely as spam: Date: Sun, 7 Oct 2007 07:19:34 +0200 (MEST) From: Patrik Eklund <peklund@cs.umu.se> To: Michael Barr <barr@math.mcgill.ca> Cc: Patrik Eklund <peklund@cs.umu.se> Subject: Re: categories: Help! Dear Michael, No comment (at this point) on content, but let me refer to a previous mail I sent out on the subject and related to execution. My idea was to suggest a setup of virtual classrooms so that students and teacher indeed all over the world can attend a class. Of course, students and teacher, and in the end content, must be carefully selected. The reason for my suggestion is that the number of students at many sites is usually bery low for these courses and we should join forces. My suggestion is to use "sound-video-whiteboard" techniques as provided e.g. by Adobe and Marratech. I use the latter. "Sound-video" is nothing but Skype, but adding whiteboards, that can be saved and worked with also offline, you have very good possibilities. The whiteboard mainly accepts non-formatted text, drawings and images. You can read doc and ppt file which are "pasted" as bitmaps on the whiteboard. They include desktop sharing if that would be required. Mathematical text I add through LaTeX, compiling, converting to pdf, and using the snapshot tool to paste bitmapped formulas on the whiteboard. Once you get used to it you are actually not (much) slower on the virtual whiteboard as compared to a real whiteboard. Virtual advantages are e.g. - several whiteboards and easy to switch between them - more than one can jointly add to whitebooard content - can save and open (as mentioned) - can prepare whiteboards offline (as mentioned) If this is inline with your thoughts and you would like to try out Marratech, let me know. Best, Patrik