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On Mar 11, 2020, at 4:52 PM, John Denker via Phys-l <phys-l@mail.phys-l.org> wrote:
On 3/11/20 11:55 AM, Jacob Turner wrote:
That is exactly what I am working on lately, so I would appreciate a
link to somewhere that the full conversation can be reviewed.
Suggestion #1: Please let's standardize this prepping conversation
on one listserv or the other. Otherwise it's gonna drive people nuts.
Suggestion #2: I vote for standardizing on phys-l.
Rationale: A fair bit of discussion has already taken place there.
Also, phys-l has the advantage of having a nice online /archive/.
Tip-o-the-hat to Mark Kimball for setting this up and maintaining it.
https://www.phys-l.org/archives/
=========
This is getting a whole lot less theoretical with every passing day.
A whole bunch more universities just told their students not to
come back from spring break.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/03/11/metro/university-massachusetts-system-is-moving-virtual-instruction-next-two-weeks/
There is good reason for this. The pandemic is still spreading
exponentially. Exponentials are nasty. Here's a graph:
https://www.av8n.com/pandemic/img48/coronavirus.png
AFAICT containment is out of the question. The only game in town
is to try and *slow* the spread. It needs to be slowed by some
huge factor, maybe 10×; otherwise it will overwhelm the healthcare
system.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/11/science/coronavirus-curve-mitigation-infection.html
The number of "confirmed" cases in the US is doubling every 2½
days. However that is almost certainly misleading. I reckon
the /actual/ number of cases is 10× more than the number of
"confirmed" cases, and growing more slowly, perhaps doubling
every 5 to 7 days. The discrepancy is explained by lousy
surveillance and insufficient testing, due to some combination
of incompetence and political manipulation.
=========
There were some questions about what to use for remote learning.
Zoom is rather widely used, and appears to work well. They have
been laying on extra capacity. The service is not free, they
have an "educational" price point that is quite cheap.
It can transmit from your computer screen and/or your camera.
It is sufficiently widely used that it is likely that students
already know how to use it.
One suggestion: Start transmitting 5 or 10 minutes *before*
the scheduled start of the program. Rationale: This gives
students a chance to tune in and tune up their systems.
Send something with both audio and video. Perhaps something
like this:
https://youtu.be/uY-u1qyRM5w?t=127
===========
One problem is that even if zoom has plenty of capacity in
the core of the network, large scale distance learning will
stress the /edges/ of the network, distributing signals to
homes and other endpoints.
==========
In addition to that, you will need some sort of LMS to deal
with assignments and quizzes. Moodle is widely used but not
universally loved.
Question: Does anybody have a better suggestion in this sort
of thing????????
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