Brent Warner 0:00
This is the HigherEdTech podcast Season Four Episode 19. Building a high flex classroom with Dr. David Bugay.

Tim Van Norman 0:20
Welcome to today’s HigherEdTech Podcast. I’m Tim Van Norman, the Instructional Technologist at Irvine Valley College.

Brent Warner 0:26
And I’m Brent Warner, Professor of ESL here at IVC. We both enjoy integrating technology into the classroom, which is what this show is all about.

Tim Van Norman 0:34
Welcome. We’re glad you’re here with us. So Brent, March… uh- May, not March. Yeah, last month, last month of classes. Are you getting ready for finals?

Brent Warner 0:47
Yeah, preping, getting students set up for everything. And then I’m in my last minute redesign scramble of how I do those things. You know, like, it’s like, I’m gonna change everything at the last minute, which is always my, my failure. And it’s like, I’m gonna make things better. And I was like, Maybe I should wait until the next semester. But here I go. So. So I’m in the middle of that process.

Tim Van Norman 1:09
Yeah, I’m always fascinated when I get LTI requests for this semester, at this point in the semester.

Brent Warner 1:14
I wouldn’t do that probably. Welll, actually I asked something other day, so nevermind.

Tim Van Norman 1:20
You know, it happens. But it’s good to, I encourage people to try things out at the end, but don’t hold your students accountable to them. Because you never know what’s going to happen. But yeah, it’s a good time for that. And it’s good time for preparing for and thinking about the next semester. And that’s really what we’ve been doing a little bit lately, is talking about thinking ahead versus looking into that in the past.

Brent Warner 1:46
Well, for today’s topic, let’s not encourage people to try it at the end of the semester.

Tim Van Norman 1:52
Oh, absolutely not.

Brent Warner 1:55
So we’ve we’ve got in, Tim, I’m gonna let you do the introduction. But, but we do have the esteemed Dr. David Bugay and esteemed, esteemed welcome. We’ll call you esteemed. Is that okay? For steamy, if you want. Alright, so welcome in. Tim, take it away.

Tim Van Norman 2:15
So Dr. Bugay, he and I have been working together pretty much since I started here at Irvine Valley College. I think he started at Irvine Valley College at the same time, as a professor in business. Or right after that anyway. And I’ve loved seeing different classes that you’ve created, and that you’re working on and developing things like crypto and stuff like that. But today’s topic is a higher high flex. And you’ve been working on that. Last semester, you had one class or two classes. And this semester, you’ve done it again, and this semester, and we’ll get into some of these things in a little bit. And different things that we’ve tried. Understand, for everybody listening, this is still what I would consider trial phase. We’re trying things out, we’re learning what makes sense. And a little bit David will talk about a new video camera I saw in operation today. And stuff like that. Yeah, you’re excited about that one. So we’re trying things out to see what really does work and what doesn’t. And so that’s part of what we’re going to go over today and you know, technology in the classroom. So, David, welcome.

David Bugay 3:30
Oh, thank you. Thank you.

Brent Warner 3:32
Yeah, so as Oh, sorry, before, before we get started, I think we do have to kind of clear the air here a little bit, because I think people have listened to me talk on previous episodes. And David, you know, this of me, too. I’ve been a skeptic of the high flex setup. But I will say that you have, I’m not totally switched. But you have definitely opened up my eyes to real possibilities. But what you’ve been doing and what a couple of people around campus have been doing with Tim and in through this process. So I am going to point out just to be clear, because people who are sharp listeners of the show will know I’ve I’ve said my opinion in the past and and I’m always open to having my mind changed. And you’ve you’ve you’ve done a bit of a job of it here. So I do want to kind of mention that first before because someone’s gonna go Brett, you’re a hypocrite you. You said this. And he said that and I say, Yeah, that’s true. But but we want to we want to kind of get into this with an honest conversation here. And so I think before we start, David, how would you define a high flex classroom?

David Bugay 4:34
You know, there’s multiple definitions for it. And it just depends where you’re at the really it’s about tearing down turtle balls is about tearing down physical walls having to free interaction between online students and face to face students at the same time. A lot of people toss in asynchronous as well. Now you could just simply record the class and broadcast that and they think that’s nice, but you really end up with a different Format altogether, because you’re not going to have those people interacting. So in a perfect world, you would have the breakdown of a physical wall, the breakdown of a digital wall, and even a breakdown of time, the reality of it. So, Canada, students sit down and pick and choose, you know, we’re if you go back and look at the roots and hyflux, the pandemic did a couple of things to society. But you can see everywhere from online ordering, or restaurants almost was non existent. 2018 2019, the Gen Z is picked up in some millennials, but the pandemic force almost everybody into a full online boat, we probably jumped 10 years, if you had a normal timeline, versus the what the pandemic did. It did a couple things for us, too. We did not want to go into the world, we kicked and screamed going into an asynchronous mode, we didn’t want to do it. We are terrified to death, we had 17 or sent the classes at IVC, online asynchronous, and we jumped to 30%. So we have those kinds of bizarre numbers. And both of us went kicking and screaming into the future. So we’re there. So now we’re there. The Gen Z’s this is their turf. So all sudden, you have all these people that those people, just old people become baby boomers, okay, you have those people out there who really didn’t deal with this kind of thing. All sudden, now we have to adapt to technology that is much younger than us so to speak, but the students seem to like it. But they also this is kind of an amazing thing. A lot of them like face to face, you would think they would all dive full head that no, that’s not the case. They’re not all diving into it. But they’re also all not diving back into the classroom. So you have this this storm going on the pandemic damage society at some level, because of the fact that students don’t interact when you walk into a classroom, to teach face to face. There’s 17 students in the classroom. And most of the 17 run are cell phones, texting, people are watching the video, they are not conversing with each other. So I make fun of all I just tell my son, I’m sorry, you’re supposed to be here interacting, socialize, he doesn’t have a social media button and go start talking. So he had to make fun of the reality that we’re in. But you have to also respect it, some people were actually damaged to some extent. Now, I flex does a couple of bizarre things. It gives people the option, the option to sit down admit that I can’t make it. If you’re this doesn’t sound like a big deal. But it is a big deal to for some people, you’re going to school all the time face to face, the teacher takes attendance, even though the community college we’re taking attendance, there is an expectation for us to go back and take attendance and to be there because you are accountable. And there is a portion of our society that really takes it seriously. So but what we’re doing with HyFlex is you now have permission you can be here or anywhere else you want to be doesn’t matter. Don’t feel guilty about it, you now have permission. Well, what happened. So if you have those people that need to have permission, okay, before if they miss class, they would have felt guilty. But once you break a rule, you can break a rule again. And again, it gets easier each time. So it’s the matter of over a 16 week semester, you’re sitting there and you have a student, okay, they break the rule once they kind of look over their shoulder waiting for somebody to beat them up because he does something wrong. And high flicked is no big deal. We don’t care. We tried to draw them in. And our goal really is to break down the barrier. So we have a couple of tools that we did in the process. But really at the core of HyperFlex we want to help open doors and tear down barriers altogether. Trying to get students to talk online. We have well we do I just didn’t believe spring stop I threatened to have the official accounting formula, the fundamental accounting equation, we’re going to have a tattoo artists come to last week class and and a tattoo all the students with that on the right tricep, just in case. So tell them bizarre things like that. So we have fun, but I also draw in the people online, I’ll threaten them. If you don’t do that. You’ll be the first one to get it, you know. So we have those kinds of dialogues. And we actually have interaction and dialogues happening in the classroom. And with students online, feeling free to open their mouths and talk now that probably one of the biggest miracles. First of all, about about three weeks ago, I had a miracle happen classroom. We have three computers going on at the same time. We have one at the teacher station, we have one and the back monitor, monitor but as soon as pictures on it, and then we have a surface going for the first time. I all three worked and been a breakdown and I thought it was a great victory. Hey, all right. Sometimes you take the victories when you get on. So So now Plex. In that same week, I had six students online, and six students in class engage in discussion. And it was a discussion going back and forth. Now that probably was the most significant moment that I could see so far this semester, in my own experience in high flex. Because in that moment, in that one space time, I truly did have a breakdown of the walls of physical and digital. And you have to start taking these little victories because this is not easy. It really is for a faculty member who wants to be challenged, which is kind of a fun thing. Because it really is you’re dancing on a razor’s edge. But you’re going to make a mistake, no matter how good you are, as a faculty member, you’re going to make a mistake. But what you have is that with the students, it’s called the Hawthorne effect. The let me kind of go back over to how pretty tech was back in the 1930s. And there was a general electric plant in Hawthorne. And they ran an experiment where they had, they had harbored scientists coming in with their clipboards suits and ties on, and they changed the light bulbs in the factory to go brighter, productivity increased, they change light bulbs again to grow better yet, productivity increased, they did it again and increased even further. Well, then they went back to the original lighting, and went up, productivity increased again. And then they went down and increased, there was no intelligence to it, they’re using scientific management, the lighting didn’t have an impact, because no matter what they did, productivity increased. Well, the reality was the bosses, the researchers were paying attention to the factory workers, it really was the birth of something called the human relations management movement. And that really changed things. What we’re doing with this, we can make mistakes, and the students are forgiving, because they are they understand that we’re trying to do something to get something better for them, that we tell them that. And we actually have, like, we’re gonna have a survey at the end of the semester, I had one last semester. By the way, the server results are not what I expected. I really did think that and here’s probably the biggest fear a lot of faculty have, well, if I offer it online, okay, and face to face, they’re going to leave face to face and go online. That has not been true. So I’ve now taught three classes with the high flex format. And it’s about 5050. And they will drift in and out. Last semester, I had two classes that were high flex, and it was the beginning of high flex for us. But it really, were still back in the roots of just getting a couple things going. But the reality is 91% of the students in the class went and they did both they were online, and they were face to face. So this whole thing of the migrating off and being all 100% online simply did not happen. It’s not happened this semester, either. The retention rate is so far, we don’t have a lot of data on this. But so far, the retention rate we’re seeing is higher, it’s higher in my case than face to face. So last fall, I had a Tuesday night class. And that class we had, we had 44 students, two of them, I dropped because they weren’t participating, what only one student of the rest have dropped, we had a higher retention rate than you would have been the face to face class. So high flex is showing stuff a couple things. I the current Hypex class I have right now I have almost nobody dropping out, it’s I almost have the same number exactly as I started with. Now, those are astounding numbers. For my experience. You also have the aspect of the have the old ratio of if it’s online, there’s a 64% retention rate that simply is not happening. We’re having retention rates 80% No matter what happens. So that that’s been my experience so far, as well as Professor John Russo. And we also have somebody and by the way, John Russo, myself, we’re both business faculty, we also have a foreign language faculty member doing this. And she teaches like nothing like we do whatsoever. I could not handle teaching the way she does at all. And so so our format tends to be lecture because that’s the nature of the material. Her is interpersonal. She bounces from student to student individually in the classroom. And she’s loving that too on top of it. So she is not just a little bit deep cheeses kicked us. We’re in the process. It is an exciting thing. But it is no matter what happens. You will be embarrassed sometimes you go if you’re embarrassed, double.

Tim Van Norman 14:34
So if anybody hadn’t guessed, yes, Dr. bouquet is lectures for his classes. As he hasn’t as we haven’t had to ask a question for the last, I don’t know. 510 minutes. Yes. So we’ll break some of this stuff down a little bit. But as as you mentioned, you you’ve done This for a couple of semesters now, what you found you took a class that was designed as in person, and allowed people to go online. And, and worked it out that way. You know, in the in the place that you were talking about with this foreign language instructor, she has the opposite. She had an online class and her students she found were sitting in the cafeteria, taking her class. And so she arranged to just hey, if you want, why don’t you come into a classroom. And then we moved in the technology. And she wound up over a class of 22, I think it was nine people showed up for the first two weeks, each of the first two weeks, and the same nine are coming back. And they signed up for an online class, but really would prefer to be in person. And that was also people who weren’t in the cafeteria. So other people drove on campus to come to class, because they felt that that was a better experience for them. So I love the fact that in this case, we’re giving students the option to figure out what’s right for them. And I

Brent Warner 16:14
want to follow up on this, David, I know this is anecdotal. So people can’t necessarily expect this for their own classes. But when you do this with your students, do they tend to choose a modality and stay in that modality? Or do they jump back and forth? Do they sometimes show up in person? Do they sometimes show up online? How do they is their consistency? One way or another? Or is the consistency in rotation? How do you How have you found that coming out so far?

David Bugay 16:45
I would say about a third of them are strictly face to face a third run line and a third of them flip back and forth. Okay. Okay. So I literally I had, we had the BPI or vice president instruction come into class. And one of my students had been online the Wednesday before he showed up face to face, and he drifts back and forth I have about I would say it’s a little bit over a third flip back and forth. There are some and the ones that stay face to face, the bulk of them have another class somewhere, or there’s another reason, or they’re interested in some other companionship opportunities. So to figure that one out, so anyhow, so you have that going on as well. So you have that it’ll be probably one of the most interesting things we did I have a project I do in this class was called Introduction to Business, I’d make them do what I call the futures project, where they have to sit down and project business in the world 30 years from now, and visualize how the BD so that’s a whole different activity. Well, I have students, we take 20 minutes in class to work on the project, two or three times, they’re on the cell phone with a student that is online talking to them, or two of them in the same group, that group of five, they’ll have one or two online talking to them on the cell phone or whatever. So they’re watching that, then I have four different groups going around or five groups in the classroom, and they’re doing face to face and online, interpret with plenty of problems. Now, that’s great, puts a different spin because I’m not in control of that. They’re in control of that. And they’re adopting the model themselves.

Tim Van Norman 18:28
And so I do have to ask one question, after spring break, I didn’t bring in the equipment for you, for your first class after spring break. And what happened in your class that time because you didn’t have the extra equipment. And we’ll talk that in a little bit when we talk about equipment, but you didn’t have the extra equipment? How did your class like that?

David Bugay 18:54
I had to do a lot more jokes and puns of dead jokes. It wasn’t as much fun the students it was a noticeable change the students on mine did not participate. Normally, I have them online and you can see their face on the screen at the front of the classroom. But along with the PowerPoint, and I have a the view with the students just joined about four or five of them on the right hand margin of the screen. Not one of them participated during class now. Now the one caveat I did let me let me toss this in there. And the caveat, I told them that this is a face to face class. If you go online, you have to put your camera on unless you give me a reason why an email and I approve it outside the class. So I do have two students with that criteria. But for the most part, they’re online. And by the way, getting rid of the black screen with just your name on it is one of the best things about teaching online sync. I mean seriously, I don’t know about anybody else teaching but when you’re teaching and you see a blank screen, and you have a name there, you don’t know that they’re sleeping I don’t know if they’re eating, I don’t know if they’re there at all. And you know, because a lot of times you end class and nurses to people, and you see their names there, and you caught their names and they don’t respond, you know, darn while they were paying attention. So, so turning the cameras on helps. So,

Brent Warner 20:16
so So this sounds interesting. And I think this is going to be a good transition into what the the actual physical tech setup is. And, Tim, I know you’ve been involved with helping helping get that system going. And in fact, David’s I don’t know if it’s for your class, or if it’s for, for John Russo’s or someone else. But every morning when I’m going into my morning class, I see Tim, I see Tim walking across campus, pushing this giant television from his office all the way over to the business building over there. And it’s like, just like, it’s it’s huge. I mean, it’s probably, it’s a 65 inch TV or something like that on wheels. And you’re just running around the parking lot, and posting it every week. So So one kudos for the effort to make this happen every time. But can we actually talk between the two of you what is the actual structure of the technology setup for all of this.

Tim Van Norman 21:09
So understand that we have, there’s a specific room that we’re doing this in for Dr. McGee and doctors, so they, it’s a specific room that’s set up in a specific way. And we’ve added the ability to do this other stuff with HyFlex to that room. In the other case, for the foreign language teacher, that the room she’s in does not have the other capabilities, and we’ll get into the capabilities in a minute, does not have the capability. So we’re having to punt. And as I mentioned earlier, this is a time when we are testing things, literally, as you mentioned, rolling around a big 65 inch TV on wheels. It’s got a computer on the back, it’s got a camera on it, microphone, speakers, all of that stuff. So when early in the process, we tried it oh, we want to try it in the back. Okay, and now let’s try it on the side. Well, let’s try it on the other side. You know, we’ve, that’s part of what we’re trying to do right now is figure out what works, right? Yes. So that then we can wire it in properly. You know, so, and I’m a big trial and error guy, I love doing this. This to me is like heaven, we’re trying different things. So for, for the minimum configuration, what we did is we brought in a, a big screen TV, that’s a monitor. And it’s got a small computer attached to the back a webcam on top. And with just got a microphone on it, and a soundbar. So that you get a little bit better quality sound and just the TV would be and that the teacher can use that as a participant in zoom. And then they have either their teaching station or a laptop or something where they’re putting their PowerPoint they’re teaching from basically. And you have to deal with what computer has sound, what doesn’t have sound because you can’t have both in the same room. Otherwise, you get squelching and problems. But that is the really base configuration. And then we go up from there. So the next level, the level that that we have in business area, we’ve got, as David mentioned, it’s three computers right now I’m trying to get it down to two, okay. And once I can wire in the devices, I can make it be only two computers. But I’ve got to, we’ve got to get some cabling done to make sure that’s work, right. So basically, you have a teaching station up front, and you have the computer that you teach from as like a surface or a laptop or something so that you can move around the classroom. This would work with somebody who doesn’t move around the classroom, but it’s really designed for giving you that mobility to not stand behind the teacher station all day. And which I know for myself, when I’m presenting I hate standing in one spot the whole time. I’ll use remotes, I’ll use anything I can to get away from that teaching station. So having a separate computer that I can just look at, or the teacher can look at is really useful. So then the other computers are we’re just using zoom, so we’re not using any special software or anything like that. And the other computers are just simply participants in the Zoom meeting and the teaching the machine that they’re teaching from is the host. Okay. So on the in the front, we’ve learned to have the, whatever is being presented, PowerPoint, Canvas, slides, whatever you’re presenting in your class is at the front of the screen that’s on the teaching station at the back of the classroom, we and by the way, the teaching station, we also have really good microphones and really good speakers on that teaching station. Those are built into the classroom already, it does have a camera, but it isn’t in the place, we want it right now, we’re going to wind up moving that camera, hopefully. And once we do that, we can put it in a better position to get the classroom. And what we found is if we put the the faces of the students in the back, everybody, it’s kind of like having a back row, a different back row. And everybody, all the students look to the back row, if somebody says something, they know that they’re actually I can see them behind me. Okay, so they just turned around, while the voice comes from heaven. The the actual, everybody just literally turns and looks. So they understand that little difference. And it really does look nice, when you see the whole class just starting to look, we found that putting it at the back of the classroom was better because and as David put it, when you’re teaching, a lot of times you teach in the middle, you’re not really concentrating on who’s at the far edges of your classroom. Okay, and making an effort to look that direction. But it’s really easy to look at the middle. And so what we found is if we put the students in the middle in the back, the teacher is actually looking at them most of the class, and they feel like they’ve got that contact with the teacher.

Brent Warner 26:37
Okay. Okay. So, David, I want from your perspective as the teacher in this class. And as you’re I’m guessing from what Tim saying that you’re moving physically moving around the classroom and not not prioritizing the front, but maybe maybe you’re spending some time at one place, or one or the other. How there’s, there’s this is a trial and error process, right, as you’re getting used to it. So so what were what were your experiences going through these changes and and and your students experiences as well, as you’re trying to kind of determine which parts of these things work for you. Was it a collaborative conversation with the students on what they liked too, or was it just kind of you making most of the decisions and telling it to switch things around or talk a little bit about that process,

David Bugay 27:26
this whole process, just you know, can never be done, unless you have somebody in it, that’s going to help? That’s a big deal. So So literally Monday, I have class at 11 o’clock, it is 10 minutes to 11, I put a frantic call because the screen was the back end, it’s a matter. So it’s a scream. And so Tim comes running across pushing this, you know, this giant television across campus and, and we voted in just in time, but, but it’s one of those moments of I was teaching, and I already had students online, okay, and teaching face to face. So I just to me, it doesn’t matter, both forums are fine for me. I don’t care. But I wanted to reach out and connect with them better I was I was doing a mediocre job I felt with online. So the number one issue I had was the black screen because the students have their little their cameras are turned off, that’s an issue. The other part is I can’t see them. Even if the even at the black screens are gone, I still can’t see them because you only have one little ship with four out of 20 students showing. So my my classes typically are somewhere in the vicinity of 40. So I have half the class online and half over here. So I wasn’t doing the job I thought they should be doing. And that really is I wanted to make certain because the what when I teach my goal is to what goal number one is provide the academic material they’re supposed to know, the other thing might deliverable and I tell them upfront, my deliverable is I want to give you something that will go past this classroom that you use in your life. Okay, so because it’s the business class there, everybody’s got a job somewhere. Okay, so that with that being said, my goal is those two deliverables, if I met seen that they’re connecting with it, or they’re not connecting, so my goal was more connection at a deeper level than I was providing. I don’t know how it worked up and rotated. Did you actually leave the screen in the back one time, but I saw that, and Tim and I talked about this. And so he came up with the idea of kidnapping the screen. It’s actually his screen, okay, and moving moving it across campus. And so we tried and we tried different positions, but we tried it by the sidewall and then we tried it the back wall, and I cannot stand behind the podium. The that is just that me I pace and I typically walk back and forth in front of the classroom and make certain I connect with every single student and I also worked on the middle so I have the T shaped walk that they do. And that’s my natural rhythm anyway, with the screen in the back office. And now I have the screen up front. And I had the students in the back end there, Jessica, like a last row. And at first, I didn’t like that, because of that, that is the last row. But now I make eye contact, and I’m not turning my head all the time looking to the one wall to where they’re at. So you have that and the other students would they talk now there now, they have the same rhythm. They’re turning around, like Tim said, and looking at the screen at the back of the room. You know, at first we called it the god voice, because you have this giant speaker to ceiling and some unknown student is talking. And they overwhelm everybody. Now, literally, if somebody makes a comment, everybody turns and looks at the back screen. So now we have a natural rhythm of the students now accepting the people that there, they just happen to be in the back row, the barrier of a digital wall now seems to be gone. And it may come back next week. It does because we wanted victory one weekend, this thing doesn’t mean everything. We finally the other the other part on the technology. There are three computers going and it is frustrating. So finally, Tim is a genius on electronics. I am not. Okay, so So I put it, I wrote it down. Okay, so Tim and I have this document going back and forth. We’re editing it by adding different stuff on it. So now there’s an instruction sheet. That helped a lot. I don’t need it now. But I needed it, I need the writer doc, because that’s how I learned for me. So I wrote it out. So here is the official instruction sheet. And Tim, correct me as we go through it. When it comes to the classroom, I take my surface by my surface is a 13 inch screen surface, I take the keyboard off, so I have what’s a glorified iPad, that’s very light, it weighs just a couple ounces, and I open up campus on that. And then I load up my PowerPoints on it. And they also connect and zoom on the surface. Okay, that way the surface is the host, okay? Okay, so I have that going. And then I get rid of the view of the students, and they put the chat on the screen. So the only thing on my Surface is my PowerPoint presentation and chat. That way the students can do chat, and I’m the only one that sees it, they can give me a personal message. And then we I can respond to it on an individual basis. And it’s a whole right hand side of the screen, the classroom computer goes on. And on the classroom computer, we also log into zoom. So everybody sees the same PowerPoint presentation. Except on that Zoom, we get rid of all the students pictures that’s at the front of the classroom. So the only thing the class sees in the classroom is the PowerPoint, and the students online. That’s what they see as well. At the back of the classroom, we have another computer going. And that’s the computer that Tim brings up the 65 inch screen. And on that one, we have a gallery view of all the students on Zoom. So there’s 20 students on that screen there. And then then we kind of scoot over the gallery view. So you see a teeny tiny presentation of PowerPoint. And it’s only there for the instructor to see to see if the slides are advancing. That way you have your your, your surface, you can see the slides there, you have the screen behind you with that deck going forward, as well as the one back so you have three different parents, you’re seeing that. So in a perfect world that all goes through, we’ve had a perfect world a couple times where nothing failed. But part of it is just getting the hang of there’s a rhythm to it, there’s a rhythm just like face to face, there’s always a rhythm to something, you have to get the hang of it and have to be able to experiment. We also have now we have coming online, it’s something that we really wanted to have the tracking camera, and the tracking camera will be able to sit and focus in on who’s ever talking and track them and move them around, you know, follow the person around the classroom. Now that one, we haven’t used it yet. We just received it and we’re working out the micro details for it. But that being said, we’ll have that going hopefully this week or next week.

Tim Van Norman 33:57
That said that was what I was talking about earlier. I got it working today. So I’m hoping to put it in the classroom on Thursday morning. Because I have meetings going all the way up until your classroom is your classes over the beginning.

David Bugay 34:16
I want to play with it.

Tim Van Norman 34:18
I know you do. We’ll have to move it in and out and stuff like that, but we got it working and we we got some theories on how we want to make it work and so but yeah, it’s it’s really a neat new tool and actually, for the higher end cameras. It’s not that much more expensive than the camera that we had been putting in place that isn’t that doesn’t track so they’re they’re a whole lot more than we would spend on a webcam. Anyway, but But that said, we’re getting a much more high high quality camera that and easily go 40 feet or so. Oh, wow.

Brent Warner 35:04
Well, that’s great. And so this camera then will track David as he walks around, right? So it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be sensor based or something like that, to have one

Tim Van Norman 35:15
particular one we have is doing facial, or and then it follows that person until that person doesn’t indicate does something to have somebody else be the one that it follows. Okay, so and and will that’s part of what we have to do training we have to do testing. We’re really spending this semester especially really doing lots of testing, we want to make sure that when we start implementing stuff, we get it right. Yeah, yeah. Okay,

Brent Warner 35:45
so I think we’re getting close to time here. But I do want to kind of check with both of you, because we’ve got the teachers perspective. And we’ve got the IT perspective, right from this conversation. So. So David, we’ll start with you. If someone out there listening is like, Hey, maybe I want to try doing this or, you know, I’m kind of interested in it. What are the you know, what, what’s the piece of advice? Or what’s what’s one thing that you would tell someone to be aware of, or to pay attention to, as they’re considering starting the journey of moving to a high flex class?

David Bugay 36:22
I think the number one thing is keep the perspective right as to why you’re doing it. That having fun with technology is not the reason, because the technology will turn us back and bite us if it has the opportunity. The reality is, is this a tool to reach students in a better way, we have to break through I mean, they’re already living in a digital world half the time anyway. So So let’s invade, it was something good that we think we’re good, hopefully, but let’s sit down and use it for the for the tool, they’re gonna be doing this stuff anyway. They’re on their phone all the time. Let’s go ahead and be part of that world that that’s what they’re naturally at nowadays. So. So at the end of the day, we’re experimenting really to make certain that the students are getting the message. They’re listening to what the lessons are about. You’re trying to make it more interesting. And I think that’s what this whole perspective is.

Brent Warner 37:13
Excellent. Okay. Yeah, I love that I love the the goal is, is really about helping the students get there and getting together with them. So I love that idea. And then, Tim, for you, because we know, we also have instructional technologists that are listening to the show as well. And they’re like, yeah, maybe I’m gonna try it. So same question for you.

Tim Van Norman 37:34
So, for me, the idea is, find somebody who is willing to fail, who’s willing to try things, and is willing to understand this is not going to work right the first time. And it is going to be a lot more work when you get started. And that’s something that you Brent have said over and over again, this is it’s a lot more work, and I am absolutely behind that. David, you told me the same thing. And, and a lot of the work is really imagining what your class is like. So you need to make sure that the person can handle that. And the various technology things that are gonna come up and that are just going to be different. For instance, Microsoft Surface, who knew that if you have your camera on on a Microsoft Surface computer, and you can look this up on the internet, you’ll find article after article and stuff, if you have your camera on the surface will overheat. Oh, in zoom, who knew? It’s in something that’s been going on for several years. And we didn’t know it until it happened. And we’re like, wait, what’s up with that? So understanding that you’re going to have weird things happen? You know, understanding that, oh, I want to try it on an iPad. Why won’t an iPad work? I want to try it on a laptop, what? What are the successes, what do I want to bring into it, and working together to make it happen? Understand this is a lot of error. Before you even get to the trial part. You’re going to try things and it’s going to fail, and it’s going to fail and fail and fail and fail. And all of a sudden, you’ll have a little bit of success. Like you were talking about earlier, David, hey, we’ll take those little successes, but learning at each step and understanding just because it works right in this classroom, doesn’t mean it works right in the next classroom. So you got to be working with it. You think about best practices. There’s best practices, but you got to do things differently in the different classrooms and how you want to teach. So for instance, if you’re going to write on a whiteboard, you got to make sure the equipment will read what’s written on the whiteboard whiteboard. If you’re only going to be presenting on have a PowerPoint, that’s a whole lot easier in zoom. So you’ve got to think through the different nuances of how you’re going to teach. And really try things out over and over and over again work together with technology and teaching to, to figure out what’s going to work right for you. Not just for the next person. Yeah, but you are you are a unique. You’re unique as a faculty member, you’re going to bring something different into this. How does that work? So?

Brent Warner 40:35
Yeah, so this sounds to me from both from what both of you are saying, This is not a solo effort to make this happen? I guess. That’s really what I’m hearing here, between the two of you is this is a big collaboration, and everybody has to be part of it, and proactive with the same the same goal in mind. Is that is that sound, right?

Tim Van Norman 40:53
No, absolutely.

David Bugay 40:54
I think right now, the couple times, we’ve had no success having to call Tim, it’s about 10 minutes before class starts up again, they’re typically show up about 15 minutes before class, check everything out and everything. Once you get the rhythm down, Pat, this is probably about 10 minutes before class, you have to start getting it be in that room, getting it set up. But if one thing goes sideways, all sudden you’re panicking. So it’s one of those is one of the moments. So it’s your but I do visualize big picture wise, if a year from now I would visualize as having all the technology operating, we could roll into the room 15 minutes early and have everything work the entire class without a problem. Yeah, so there’s a little bit of sacrifice, but but I think eventually, once the bugs are worked out, once you know what you’re doing, I think this will be highly successful.

Brent Warner 41:42
Great. So maybe, maybe we’ll come back in a year or so and kind of revisit the conversation, what’s updated, what’s changed? What’s what’s smoother. What’s permanent installations? Are there are there single push button, push to start? options, all that type of stuff. Really interesting thoughts here? Great conversation, a lot of things to think about here. So. So David, thank you so much for joining and sharing your your, your experiences with us. I think it’ll be really useful for a lot of people who have been kind of eyeballing it, but haven’t really been ready to take that jump, you know, like, let someone else let someone else do the exploring first and then I’ll follow in afterwards. Right.

David Bugay 42:24
Well, thank you for the invite. Appreciate it. Thanks. Thank you.

Tim Van Norman 42:29
Thank you for listening today. In this episode, we talked about building a high flex classroom with Dr. David Bugay. For more information about the show, please visit our website at the higher ed tech podcast.com. There you’ll find our podcasts and links to the information we’ve covered.

Brent Warner 42:43
As always, we want your feedback. So please go to the higher ed tech podcast.com and let us know your thoughts. And if you have ideas for future shows, there’s a link over there where you can give us your topic ideas

Tim Van Norman 42:53
for everyone at IVC. That’s listening. If you need help with technology questions, please contact IVC technical support. If you have questions about technology in your classroom, please stop by the IVC Training Center in a 322 or contact me Tim Van Norman T van norman@ivc.edu.

Brent Warner 43:09
And if you want to reach out to me about the show, you can find me on LinkedIn at Brent G Warner.

Tim Van Norman 43:15
I’m Tim Van Norman,

Brent Warner 43:16
and I’m Brent Warner and we hope this episode has helped you on the road from possibility to actuality. Take care everybody