Andrés at Joensuu

Last Friday I held my first demo session. It was for the “Educational Technologies of Computer Science” course. I had unofficially been teacher assistant in disguise before, but at Warwick (TA they call them) and while trying to observe people using Jeliot. This time was completely different.

I had to introduce them to the world of videoconferencing, and I hoped they have learnt as much as I did while preparing the demo session. While I guess the slides I presented where not the funniest thing, we got to use video-conference to the extreme!! First the presented their tasks to the other groups through video-conference (the department has 2 video-conference systems) and they realized which benefits and drawbacks the video-conference systems have. However, the most exciting was when we managed to have a video-conference with Sami Andberg, from University of Helsinki’s Educational Centre for ICT. A video-conference about video-conferences, how suitable. He was kind enough to answer the questions the students had about how video-conferences are used there, and showed us the technology it requires; all my doubts about what an MCU is disappeared!

Then, there is the issue of grading students on their weekly assignments. While it is a small power, what you do may influence the students, actually it should influence them if done in the right way. Rather than correcting them, I preferred to give them new ideas to think about…but not feedback from them yet.

Hi all, my week long trip has finished succesfully and I am now back to Joensuu. After leaving Warwick, I had quite a busy time, meeting my parents in Canterbury, visiting my cousin at London, attending one seminar at Dagstuhl (Germany) and flying back to Tampere from Frankfurt. It seems I cannot avoid these long and dirty journeys :)

As good as I am, I went to the department to update myself to Joensuu version 2006. Things seem to be moving at the department, however nothing changes: all the good people are still around. It was good to meet all them, and to be able to talk with them (things I missed while being at Warwick).

Next week looks important for my PhD, as I will start analyzing the data I collected at Warwick and see what can be done with Mike and Erkki. On the other side, Niko is doing cool stuff with Jeliot, and we should be able to release a new version of it anytime soon!!

Keep coming back as I will write about my lasts days at Warwick, the seminar and post pictures all along.