I am enrolled into the Mathematics and Data Science program at the university.
I really enjoy my cigars and wine, which is what I do on most weekend. Other than that I'm a fitness freak and a massive, I mean massive sporting fanatic.
That's all folks!
Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a way of thinking about teaching and learning that helps give all students an equal opportunity to succeed. This approach offers flexibility in the ways students access material, engage with it and show what they know. Developing lesson plans this way helps all kids, but it may be especially helpful for kids with learning and attention issues.
For a better understand on the concept of UDL, the TED Talk by Michael Nesmith is informative and explains the importance behind why we need it. Click on the video below ⬇️
Three main principles of UDL
Representation:Â UDL recommends offering information in more than one format. For example, textbooks are primarily visual.
Action and expression: UDL suggests giving kids more than one way to interact with the material and to show what they’ve learned.
Engagement: UDL encourages teachers to look for multiple ways to motivate students. Letting kids make choices and giving them assignments that feel relevant to their lives are some examples of how teachers can sustain students’ interest.
References:
Brame, C. J. & Biel, R. (2015). Setting up and facilitating group work: Using cooperative learning groups effectively. Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching. Retrieved June 8, 2022, from http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/setting-up-and-facilitating-group-work-using-cooperative-learning-groups-effectively/.
Mayer, R. E. (Ed.). (2014). The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139547369
How Do We Evaluate Multimedia and Multimedia Tools?Â
Let’s Describe differences between TPACK, SAMR and SECTIONS
What is TPACK?
Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) is the effectiveness of the delivery of the lesson with technology integration. It is an ideal application in all aspects of learning, which are all important in the teaching and learning process. TPACK is an emergent form of knowledge that goes beyond all three “core” components (content, pedagogy, and technology). Technological pedagogical content knowledge is an understanding that emerges from interactions among content, pedagogy, and technology knowledge. The TPACK framework builds on Shulman’s (1987, 1986) descriptions of PCK to describe how teachers’ understanding of educational technologies and PCK interact with one another to produce effective teaching with technology.
What is the SAMR Model?
SAMR Model is a framework created by Dr. Ruben Puentedura that categorizes four different degrees of classroom technology integration. The letters “SAMR” stand for Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition. The SAMR model was created to share a common language across disciplines as teachers strive to personalize learning and help students visualise complex concepts. The SAMR Model can be especially powerful during remote and blended learning when integrated classroom technology makes teaching and learning a more seamless experience for educators and students.
In the video below ⬇️ we explore key differences between TPACK and SAMR Model
What is the SECTIONS Model?
SECTIONS Model Explained
SECTIONS Model is an applicable framework that educators can use to evaluate the effectiveness of applying a certain technology in their classrooms. SECTIONS specifically refers to 8 different areas: Students, Ease of use, Costs, Teaching & Media, Interactivity, Organizational issues, Networking and Security & Privacy. Using the SECTIONS MODEL by Bates and Poole, can help guide the instructor since it was designed to “facilitate decisions with regard to choice of technology at both the strategic and the tactical level, and also to help decide within a particular technology the most appropriate balance between different media” (Bates & Poole,2003, p.79-80).
References:
Bloom, A. (1987). The closing of the American mind: How higher education has failed democracy and impoverished the souls of today’s students. New York: Simon and Schuster.
Bruce, B. C., & Hogan, M. C. (1998). The disappearance of technology: Toward an ecological model of literacy. In D. Reinking, M. McKenna, L. Labbo, & R. Kieffer (Eds.), Handbook of literacy and technology: Transformations in a post-typographic world(pp. 269–281). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Leinhardt, G., & Greeno, J.G. (1986). The cognitive skill of teaching. Journal of Educational Psychology, 78(2), 75–95.
Sport runs through my veins and I’m a huge fanatic. I’ve played a lot of sports and I watch a lot of sports. Liverpool FC, Miami Heat, Three Lions, Springboks are some of the sports teams I travel for including many others.
I enjoy travelling, having been privileged to have be raised in a family that doesn’t enjoy being at home this gave me the opportunity to go everywhere. I’m at 52 countries and counting so far. Somewhat of a globetrotter I guess 🤷🏽‍♂️
I’m a huge dog lover. I want to pet them all. I have one myself and we enjoy going on hikes together around the Burnaby area and all over B.C. We try to take a trip at least one weekend every month to explore nature since we live in an apartment
Check out a few images that describe my life ⬇️ and scroll to the bottom for a surprise
Click on the link below ⬇️ to watch me talk about absolutely nothing . Enjoy👍🏾
One of the best ways to transfer knowledge, learn about a subject or a person is through story telling. Storytelling is great because you have creative license. You keep people engaged and then a conversation can be used to break down barriers by asking each other questions.
I decided to improve on a multimedia object that i did through Google Earth. I decide to redo my google story that represents my journey from Zimbabwe to Canada to attend the University of Victoria. In this story i capture the month I was leading up to me finally landing in Victoria for the start of jump start week.
Please click on the link below⬇️ to go on a journey with me from Africa to North America, Zimbabwe to my new chapter!
Segmenting principle was one of the multimedia principles that I decided to use. This principle simply states that people learn better when information is presented to them in small packets of data or segments, rather than a huge stream of data. This principle is important because the learner can control the pace at which they absorb information. This is style is outlined in m story because people are able to go back and forth between slides and each section break has an explanation of what’s to come.
Another principle that is explored on this project is the multimedia principle. This states that individuals learn better from visuals in combination with words. One of the the two as a stand-alone will not work. Most of the presentation is visual and slides that have words describing places of importance on my journey, which I thought would be easy for the consumer to understand. Regarding the cognitive learning theory, transfer of knowledge is concise and easy for anyone to consume. Most of the slides are accompanied by an image that captures and embodies the spirit of the area.
Signalling principle is another multimedia principle that I explored. This principle states that humans learn best when they’re shown the exact information they have to consume. For example, the slide describe exactly what is coming up and this gives a viewers context of what to expect.
This image was not edited using VSCO. However, there is something interesting about it and I’ll explain. I found this really interesting tip on Instagram on how capture images with the skyline being more pronounced.
Go to your camera settings and switch the grid on.
Rotate your phone 180 degrees.
Zoom out to 0.5x (13mm)
Make sure the sky take up the first two rows
In this image I played around with the portrait mode on my camera. When in portrait mode the background is blurred out and the object is pronounced. Removing the background noise enables you to focus on the object (my dog, Chief) on that is in the foreground.
Processed with VSCO with al3 preset
In this image I was aiming to sharpen the background using the post-processing tool VSCO. I was aiming to bring more life to the background. The cloud cover was not bringing out the aspect of natural light in its entirety.
Processed with VSCO with b1 preset
Processed with VSCO with b5 preset
In this image I was playing around with different shades of black and white on the background. This was a low light image because of the cloud cover and I wanted to explore the idea of dropping the exposure massively as well.
This idea incorporates multiple facets of artificial intelligence and machine learning. The vehicle will be installed with an imaging system that will be constantly taking images and comparing them to your healthy ones on a server. In case of an emergency a hospital will have the ability to communicate directly with the vehicle to prepare the right medical attention required for you. The car becomes autonomous and send you to the nearest clinic.
The purpose of the project is to design and create a system that can be implemented within a car manufacturing design system and utilize the machine learning aspect. The system created will be capable of recording and providing timely access to crucial data in the design of automated cars.
As seen in the diagram, when the system being used on the test robot is used in a vehicle it will be able to will be able to:
Analyze data from sensors which will be the non-visual data to be used in combination with the visual data coming from the images.
Upload data and images to a cloud that will be used for analysis using pattern recognition. The new data will be analyzed against the pictures on the cloud already. Any new data will be analyzed and categorized.
In case of danger, a voice speaker will be activated to alert the driver of what the system would have analyzed. This communication from the voice system will alert the driver of any precautions to take.
GPS emergency signal is sent to the car manufacturer and server.
In the case of an emergency, a medical team will be alerted so that they can be prepared to deal with the situation.
WHAT CAN YOU EXPECT FROM THIS NEW TECHNOLOGY?
An autonomous vehicle is used as a training/test device before installation of technology into vehicles. Helps with road safety and fatalities if the system experiences any design flaws.
This autonomous vehicle will be used to replicate the real-world scenario of what our vehicle system will face, basically it’s a simulator.
A kit for installation on older vehicles that are not as technologically advanced can be sold separately.
Click on the video below ⬇️ and watch as I explain the genesis of the idea and the science behind it.
The Genesis
BUILDING OUR MECHANICAL DEVICES
There are several physical aspects of robotic manipulators that we will not necessarily consider when developing our autonomous vehicle based on mathematical models. These include mechanical aspects (e.g., how are the joints implemented), accuracy and repeatability, and the tooling attached at the end effector. We’re going to leverage these tools mathematically to develop a sound solution for our problem.
We need to start by identifying the type of device we need to solve our problem. For example, a hydraulic robot would not be suitable for food handling or clean room applications. Robot manipulators can be classified by several criteria, such as their power source, or way in which the joints are actuated, their geometry, or kinematic structure, their intended application area, or their method of control. Such classification is useful primarily to determine which robot is right for a given task.
Robots are often classified by application into assembly and non-assembly robots. Assembly robots tend to be small, electrically driven, and revolute like the one we are using for our solution. We’re going to use a rover robotic arm to maximize our potential in solving the solution.
APPLICATION AREA AND DESIGN
We made some modifications to our autonomous robot to fit our specifications. As we will see on the final design done using SketchUp, a camera was added, propeller blades to be used in airlifting, and different composite material used for durability, sustainability, and cost effectiveness.
METHOD OF CONTROL
Our device is classified by control method which uses closed-loop computer control to determine the motion and are thus capable of being a truly multifunctional, reprogrammable device. Servo controlled robots are further classified according to the method that the controller uses to guide the end-effector. The simplest type of robot in this class is the point-to-point robot. A point-to-point robot can be taught a discrete Set of points but there is no control on the path of the end-effector in between taught points. Such robots are usually taught a series of points with a teach pendant. The points are then stored and played back.
SYSTEM AND CONCEPTUAL SKETCHES
SketchUp View 1
Our vehicle is built with propeller blades that will be used when the vehicle goes into emergency mode. A camera to constantly improve our simulation method for machine learning. A light vehicle measuring about a third of a full-sized EV sedan both in mass and dimensions. (Figure of the conceptual sketch)
Even the programmed software should be considered as an integral part of the overall system, since the way the robot is programmed and controlled can have a major impact on its performance and subsequent range of applications. (Figure: Components of our system)
SYSTEM AND DESIGN FEATURES
We want to build a system which uses a pattern recognition system for a camera system which detects obstacles to determine if the car should break and/or manoeuvre. Thousands of hours of images for training the system so that the system can properly detect obstacles to an acceptable level in the training set. To achieve the level of accuracy required a few steps must be taken.
A method of evaluation of this system with a data set which is independent of the training set. This simply means you would need training systems with one data set and then evaluating them with another set which ideally should be larger and completely independent of the training set. This will allow you to see if a given (classification) system can generalize its (classifications) solution to data which is different from the training set.
A training set that includes cases which the cars are encountering in the real world.
An evaluation set should be independent of the training set to give a good evaluation measure. The evaluation set should also give good coverage of cases of interest in the real-world application.
CITATIONS
UVIC ECE 485: January – April 2021 course notes and assignments
M. Arbib. Computers and the Cybernetic Society. Academic Press, New York, 1977.
H. Asada and J.A. Cro-Granito. Kinematic and static characterization of wrist joints and their optimal design. In Proc. IEEE Conf. on Robotics and Automation,, St. Louis, 1985.
H. Asada and J-J. Slotine. Robot Analysis and Control. Wiley, New York, 1986.
S. Barnett. Matrix Methods for Engineers and Scientists. McGraw-Hill, London, 1979.
Jerome Barraquand and Jean-Claude Latombe. Robot motion planning: A distributed representation approach. International Journal of Robotics
Research, 10(6):628–649, December 1991. G. Beni and S. Hackwood, editors. Recent Advances in Robotics. Wiley, New York, 1985.
D. Bertsekas. Nonlinear Programming. Athena Scientific, Belmont, MA, second edition, 1999.
William M. Boothby. An Introduction to Differentiable Manifolds and Riemannian Geometry. Academic Press, 1986.
What Game Tools Or Ideas Have Peeked Your Interest?
Gamification software is any tool or platform used for applying game mechanics to non game contexts in order to boost engagement and successful end-results. Common use cases include customer retention, elearning, employee engagement, and performance management.
Slido
Slido Mobile Interface
The software package was introduced at my previous internship when I was leaving and everyone spoke highly of it. I never had the opportunity to study the software package in depth until now. A few points I can take away from exploring slido were:
Allow your team to ask questions without fear or bias. Thanks to anonymity and voting on questions, you can uncover the most pressing issues and address them live during Q&A or Ask Me Anything sessions.
Energise your team with live polling, word clouds and fun quizzes that will keep their attention from start to finish.
Meetings stay productive and on point. Slido makes it easy to collect instant feedback and identify the areas for improvement, all without using a single sheet of paper.
In closing I have learnt that Slido is a dynamic platform that allows companies or teams to have more lively, interactive meetings. It also allows a two-way communication channel where people can build trust and engage with each other.
Quizlet
Quizlet is an interactive game-based learning tool used to study information. This tool uses a variety of engaging studying techniques including interactive digital flashcards, matching, and multiple-choice activities. This learning tool is fascinating for me because I used to use hand-written flashcards to practise for my science fairs, debate or toastmasters speeches. This tool has also helped me compound my learning abilities in courses such as Critical Thinking in Philosophy.
Some Packages Offered By Quizlet
It has few interesting concepts and designs that make it user friendly:
It has study sets created by teachers, lecturers and other students, or easily create your own. Revise at home, school or on the go with the mobile app.
Quizlet explanations show you step-by-step approaches to solve tough problems. Solutions in various subjects are verified by experts.
Social media, interactive and multimedia learning has made me come up with various scenarios, myths and reservations. I would want to explore all these thoughts I have through this course.
Social media and various mobile applications were created to connect people and to be used as a tool to help you increase your reach but not be used as the only tool. Shopping is done online, dating is done online, whatever you want you can find online. People seem to have a greater disconnect with each other in the social media era. People’s lives are now on front street for everyone to see and the line that divides real life and “fiction” is now non-existent.
What made me pick this course
What is Multimedia Learning?
According to Mayer, the term multimedia refers to the simultaneous presentation of both words and pictures (2014). Multimedia learning also refers to the learner being bale to construct knowledge from a combination of words and pictures. There are various basic principles to optimise the design of multimedia learning. These principles include Signalling principle, Segmenting principle, Redundancy principle etc. The video below ⬇️ describes Mayer’s Principles or multimedia learning.
Summary of Some of Mayer’s Principles
Learning increases when corresponding words and pictures are presented simultaneously rather than successively. Also, people learn better when irrelevant details in information, sounds, or pictures are excluded. Personalizing narration helps people learn better. For instance, narrating in a conversational style as opposed to a formal style increases learning. Additionally, interactivity also increases learning. People learn better when they have control over the pace of the presentation. Moreover, signaled speech increases learning. Examples of signaled speech include emphasizing key facts, using headings, and adding connectives between text.Â
Let’s Talk About Interactive Or Multimedia Learning Experience
Nokia 3310
In the early 2000’s Global System for Mobile Communications (G.S.M.) released the popular Nokia 3310. It had a 84x 84 pixel pure monochrome display and storage space of approximately a 100 text messages. However, cloud storage came along in the dot-com bubble. According to Wikipedia, “Cloud storage is a model of data storage in which the digital data is stored in logical pools, the physical storage spans multiple servers (and often locations), and the physical environment is typically owned and managed by a hosting company.”
Image by [Bharat sharma/India times(https://www.indiatimes.com/technology/news/dumbphones-nokia-3310-making-comeback-565058.html)]
Google Drive
Google drive is a cloud storage service that was created by Google. Besides file storage Google Drive also permits editing of text documents, spreadsheets, power point presentations, drawings and more. Google offers every user 15 GB of free space for all Google App users. Google also offers an unlimited storage for educational and work purposes for at least a 5-member group. All this has enabled some team projects to go much smoother. Group projects can be completed with group members not necessarily having to meet and edit documents in real-time. Same as Github, google drive hosts some of my coding files and projects. It is also important as it backs up my notability notes from my iPad besides my iCloud.
Abacus
Abacus
This ancient technology called an abacus was an efficient tool that set me on this path to pursue my mathematics degree. As a technology, the abacuspredates the making of glass and the invention of the alphabet. The Romans had some sort of counting device with beads. So did the early Greeks. The word “calculate” comes from the expression “drawing pebbles,” basically using some sort of abacus-like device to do math. This was a non digital interactive piece of technology that was useful for me.
This device segmented information for me in terms learning units, tens, hundreds etc. It also had the visual interaction for me and I could count physical which made me believe practically that what I was being taught could be proven. There was some aspect of signalling involved because I focused on the principles I was supposed to learn. You can focus on addition and a=subtraction and that basically all you can do on this device.
Image by[DeAgostini/GettyImages(https://www.gettyimages.ca)] via [Vox Websites (https://www.vox.com/first-person/2017/3/6/14766970/abacus-math-learning-lessons)]
Ibrahim, M. Implications of Designing Instructional Video Using Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning. Critical Questions in Education, v3 n2 p83-104 Sum 2012.
Kuzu, A. et al. Application of Multimedia Design Principles to Visuals Used in Course-Books: An Evaluation Tool. The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – TOJET April 2007 ISSN: 1303-6521 volume 6 Issue 2.
