 The topic for our afternoon session is the use of visualizations and we have Sameer Sahasrabudde here. He is our PhD student who has just submitted his thesis and an expert in this area of visualization. So he will be leading this session. Okay, good afternoon to all. We will be starting this thing, this session actually and the focus of this session is about the visualizations of scientific content, like the pre-lunch session was where I think you have already talked about learning objectives, you have already submitted I hope so that they are on the moodle now and I think there was an assessment question also to be formed at the end. But when we talk about learning objectives, when what is the plan for teaching, the second question which we are now going to start off with is that which types of visuals will be important when you know that you are going to use such ICT tools into your teaching. So the objectives for this session are first of all to list out various different categories of visualization, what are the different types of visualizations available, we will run through a range of that and then towards the end we will also see how you can choose visualization which is appropriate for your topic. So with this let us go ahead and first let us see some of the visualizations, okay. So this is one type of visualization where the topic is already segmented into smaller sections like what you see here and if I open one of the sections you will see that there is a video here I will just mute the volume here. So the video is running you will have access to play pause it, you can also instead of the audio what was being seen you can read the audio transcript here by clicking on this button and you can use this text to know what is happening on the screen and this is a ongoing video. You will have interactions and at the end of this you will also have a summary slide. There is one more video it is from the mechanical engineering domain, okay. So what you see here is option given to change the parameters by two ways one is by dragging the cursor and setting the time limit on one axis and on the other axis you can set the number of experiments. After you have given these inputs you can click on start and the animation will show you how different experiments are being plotted onto this graph. After this step is done you can also generate the ensemble averaging which is displayed in another graph and the relevant equation is also displayed here. We will also see third type of visualization which is from robotics domain and that is called 2R manipulator I will just run that. In this you can see that there are some more interactions possible all the aspects of this interaction elements can be manipulated by the user like the length of link 1, link 2 and the angle of link 1 or the link 2 all these things can be manipulated not only by the slider bars but also by moving the actual object like this. So these are three types of visualizations what I wanted to show you in the beginning and now assuming all of you have seen these three visualizations let us start an activity. What we want you to do is to have this activity called think-pair-share this has three stages as written there. So the first stage of think is to be done individually. So now every participant should list three purposes of why to use these visualizations you should take two minutes to do to write those and once you are done the coordinator should let us know. So just write any three purposes why you should use visualizations. So it appears that some of the centers were unable to see the video when we were sharing the screen. So instead of really worrying about what exactly was there in the video we can let us just go ahead with the activity just go ahead to think about listing three purposes of using visualizations in your course. When would you use a visualization for what purpose would you use a visualization? Yeah please hold on to sending replies some centers are already started sending replies in the chat window just hold on to that this is just a think phase. So only individual thinking has to happen and write down your reasons then we will discuss within the center and then finally send the reasons to us we will move on to the pair phase now. What now you have to do is individuals who have listed down the purposes they should share with your neighbor and it is possible that there would be similar purposes written by your neighbor. So just discuss the commonalities and then also discuss about a difference in opinion if you have there. Ok now that you would have had some time to discuss with your neighbor let us move on to the share phase which is to come up with the top reasons from your center. So share your groups top reason with the class so that is what the individual pairs will do and what the coordinators are requested to do is to send the top two or three purposes from your center through the chat window. So most of you have written one thing common which is to make the understanding better by using pictorial visualizations and there was another aspect which was mentioned about retention. So if visuals are used then students will retain that particular topic for a longer time. There are also points like static and dynamic views of the system or the phenomena become available then there are points like better grasp. So we can now stop with sending the responses over chat and look at the summary that we have created. So as you can see the summary has mix of the responses what you have also written and one of them which is the most prominent here is making invisible things visible. So there are possibilities where you are explaining some complicated visual angles or to the different magnification level like atoms or internal structures of some machines. So this invisible objects are made visible using visualizations apart from that there is movement of object and various components wherever trajectories are involved a particular path. So trajectory is actually the path on which the movement happens and the multiple steps in a process or procedure was shown in one of the visualizations earlier where we have to stop after every phase or step in the process and then we can go ahead with the next and that is another use of visualization. This was also mentioned by one of the college about students can see things which otherwise they have to imagine. So this facilitating of what if scenarios is a major advantage of using visualizations. The point that we are trying to make here is in addition to the point that you have all noticed that of ease of understanding ease of memorization ease of recall which are valid universally across disciplines. The ones which are extremely relevant in the engineering and you know science context of education are the ones that you know some of them which are listed on the slide which is like making the invisible visible like for example when you want students to understand how the atoms are interacting with each other in order to create a particular phenomenon. So that can be easily shown through the use of visualization also trajectory of movement is again a fairly well encountered phenomenon where even right from 12th standard itself students are used to writing equations for showing various projectile motion whereas now here they might actually be able to see what is the impact of those various equations that they are writing and also the point about facilitating various scenarios saying what happens if I set the voltage of a particular circuit to very high beyond the given limit. So these kind of experiments which cannot be really performed in real life where it would be either dangerous or too expensive to perform in real life they can be easily performed through the means of a visualization. So in addition to the generic points such as you know look and feel ease of retention and so on these are some specific points for which visualizations are useful in the engineering education scenario. So based on this activity and the deliberation what we had now our focus in this workshop would be around the visualizations which are either transformational or interpretive. Now what do they mean is written in the further columns. The transformational visualizations actually are capable of showing the changes happening on the objects over time and space. So what happens after stage 1, stage 2 and stage 3? So these changes can be seen in the transformational visualizations. The examples are animation of weather cycle like how water converts into vapor and how the rainfall is occurred or video showing how to operate a particular equipment. So interpretive graphics or interpretive visualizations are mainly to illustrate a theory or principle. For example a schematic diagram of an equipment where the actual equipment we cannot see what happens inside that is converted to a schematic diagram where by using arrows and the motion we can illustrate how the working of that equipment is happening or micro level objects like molecular movement where which cannot be otherwise seen by cameras or other video capture devices. So we will be focusing more on these type of these two types of visualizations. But once we decide on the visualizations having motion and within motion graphics there can be different types again and the most common of them are the ones which have videos which are shot by cameras and animations which are generated using computers. So let us see examples of these two prominent types of motion graphics and try to evaluate the pros and cons of them in our next activity. But before that let us try and see this video right this time I will try to show you using the camera here I hope you will be able to see that. Now you will see a video being played this is from Chemical Engineering. As you can see it is shot by camera but it also has couple of textual graphics inserted like what are the ingredients of this experiment. You see the steps of how it is performed you can also actually observe the way it has to be done. For example they have shown how carefully you should handle these objects they have shown gloves being worn while adding zinc to this powder they and adding they have also written that it should be mixed carefully in the petri dish and in the last stage they drop a water drop of water is added to this mixture and you see that fumes come out of this mixture and then they show the chemical equation which is relevant to this experiment. We will see one more visualization which is so this is the animation on distillation column when you start this it shows the entire distillation column slowly it fades on to the cross section of that where you see the processed air entering it you see the boiler and the fumes start coming in they reach on the top where so you see this when these fumes reach on the top and the condensation happens so it gets accumulated and it overflows on these stages. Let us summarize here one minute for the benefit of those who could not see. So in the first case there was a video of a chemical reaction being performed in the laboratory so there was a petri dish and there was zinc granules and some iodine which were mixed together very carefully by a human being wearing gloves and then finally when the drop of water was put on to the mixture there were violet fumes that came out so that was the first video that we saw and in the second case what we saw was an animation where we looked into the internals of how a boiler distillation distillation column works and how the various fumes in the distillation column rose and condensed and then the actual process of distillation took place. So these were the two types of motion graphics that we have seen. So now what we want to do is to try to identify which of these is better and for what purpose and so on. So what we will do is do this through yet another of these active learning techniques in the morning we have already been introduced to two active learning techniques one of them is the think pair share and the other one was this polling and you know talking to your neighbor. So now we will look at a third active learning technique which is called a debate and we will go ahead and identify the benefits of these two types of visualizations through this activity of a debate. So what we need to do is form two groups so in each remote center the coordinator is requested to you know break the classroom into two groups so you can simply say that all those people who are sitting to the left of me are group A and all the people who are sitting to the right of your group B when you are standing in the middle. So that way you form two groups in your classroom and group A's topic is video so group A are the people who are going to fight for saying video is the correct mode or video is a better mode of showing visualization while group B is going to say the same thing for animation. So what you want to see is which of these two groups actually win in your center and for what reason. So what we will do is for the first five minutes we need not have any real discussion between the groups. So we can simply say that all the participants in each group you can just do the activities one and two which are listed which is identify the advantages of that of your type of visualization. So if you are group A then you will be listing the advantages of video and the disadvantages of animation and then later once this once you have come up with a reasonably long list of advantages and disadvantages then we will have a debate with the other group to find out what is which one is really better. So you can get started form the groups and list the advantages of your type of visualization and the disadvantage of the other type of visualization. So many centers we can see I have got this right in the sense that they have created two groups and two groups are first talking to within each other before starting to talk across the groups. In some other centers people are still doing this as a pair activity. So while it is okay to do it as a pair activity it will be more fun if you do it as a group A versus group B type of an activity. So by now each group should have come up with a fair number of advantages for their form of visualization be it video or animation and should have identified some disadvantages of the other type. So now it is time to start fighting between the two groups and what the co-ordinators job now is to moderate a debate between the two groups. So just ensure that the two groups do not come to blows with each other, let them talk to each other, let them refute each other saying okay one group gives an advantage the other somebody else from the other group says a counter advantage so it is like a standard debate that we see or we are used to seeing on TV and let this debate happen for about five minutes and then the co-ordinators can summarize the learning from their center for us to share across all the centers. So many centers are still debating within the group. So what we can do is now debate across the group, identify that okay if you are pro video then find the group which is pro animation and prove to them that video is better than animation that should be the goal of your exercise right now. So if the debate has somewhat stabilized in most of the centers what we can do is we can move to the next step wherein the coordinator has to do a little bit of work now. The idea is that communicate the top advantage and limitation of each of these techniques. So group A should say what is the biggest advantage of using a video and group B should say what is the biggest advantage of using an animation as well as the limitations. So the co-ordinators can please communicate these from your center to through the AVU chat window like we can already read some examples here like animation is more acceptable to students than video through animation we can explain a lengthy process in less time animation makes invisible things visible. So now it's time for some of the videos we can record the actual process on video okay so we have a lot of responses already many of them are very interesting and some of them are even contradictory in some cases people are saying that animation is more informative in other cases people are saying that video is more informative in some cases people are saying that video is more expensive while in other cases people are saying that animation is more expensive I think we can stop sending the chat responses and let us summarize as to what we have found across all the centers right so some of the interesting ones are actually about the purposes where making invisible visible which which was already discussed but they have taken that point as their top thing but video advantages exact replica of the object will be present and all outputs are real so this realism is being also communicated by couple of centers which is okay I will just go through the presentation slide now where we will summarize in the next slide so this is definitely one of the leaders in most of the responses what we found that it video captures the realistic visuals so there is nobody denies if they see a video as opposed to an animation but on the other side when you want to capture with a camera there are certain positions magnifications angles where camera can't reach simply things like furnace where the temperatures are really high you can't put in cameras on the other side for people who were backing animation this was this was a strong point that it shows visuals which are not possible to be captured by cameras and the same point where people are commenting on realism is a drawback in animation that people find that it is not real at times so it looks artificial so these are very commonly found points which we were able to also trace in your responses so now I will go ahead and we saw these two types of animations here already but when we want to have the best of both worlds is when we look at a third type of motion graphic which is motion visualization or motion graphics which is called a simulation now let me clarify here that this is different than standard matlab type of simulations where you write code and it generates the the visualizations or the objects in in the render window or in the preview window but this simulation we will just see an example of that and then we will try to see how it addresses the issues raised by both the limitations raised by video as well as animation okay so now we are going to see a simulation this is on the topic of image thresholding in electrical engineering I am also going to explain it side by side when I am doing it for the benefit of those who are unable to see it maybe at that time what you can see now is animation a screen where you have an image on the left hand side of the screen and another image other thresholded image on the right hand side what this simulation offers is a slider bar in the center of the screen in red color and if I drag it on the right hand side you can see that the image on the left hand side is getting changed in real time so what it happens is the user can change the thresholding values and see the changes happening there it also allows the user to change the graphic or the original image and see what happens if the values are changed you can see one more graphic which is of a car you have this flower image and you have this rabbit toy coming back to the slides yeah I saw couple of them could not see it but let me summarize it for them here it we were showing a particular simulation where the user was able to change parameters and see the effects in real time and user was also able to change couple of components within the animation itself or the simulation itself. So to capture it in the slide a simulation is the one which provides the controls and of changing parameters and displaying the results now these this factor is missing in either video or animation where you have user control to some limited user control where you can stop the animation or you can go back to the video till the point you wanted to see it again and you can see it n number of times if you want to but you cannot change the parameters. So the amount of iodine which was put up into the petri dish cannot be changed in the video and so on so forth. So these are the three different types of motion graphics which are available for usage in our teaching practice as a strategy. Before we go on to the next activity let us do one small question so at this point there is a pole window in a view and we what we are doing is we are we have created one question which says which of the following is an appropriate visualization for the topic of internet communication. So all of us are familiar with internet communication so the idea is that ok you are sitting at your home and you are maybe going to Google to check out some query and the question is which of the following visualizations is appropriate for this topic and the choices that are there are a schematic animation of packet delivery across a network schematic being like what we saw in one of the animations of this image thresholding or the distillation call up. The second one is an interactive simulation of the time taken to transfer a file across the network. The third choice is a video of some engineers configuring various network devices. The fourth choice is all of the above and the fifth choice is none of the above. So what each center coordinator can do is to quickly get a feel for which is the majority option for their center and convey the responses through your chat window. So, far about seven centers have submitted their responses so after another few minutes once all the centers are done we will discuss the response. Ok so almost all of them have now responded we have received 35 responses and I am one very important thing which is visible in the result is that all the people who are backing video also have not voted for this video of engineers who should be shown configuring various networking devices and rightly so because not many people will understand how the Google website was seen on your computer if they see engineers assembling the machines. Ok so let me take a contrary view here I mean so there is a debate now between your two instructors so just for some added entertainment you can say for your benefit see what we find is that some of you have said that video of engineers configuring network devices is not useful. So I am going to claim that it depends so if my goal is to teach how to configure these devices or how which wire goes into which socket that is my goal of teaching then I am going to claim that that video is actually useful so I am going to say that look that is an important part of internet communication and that is what is useful. Ok on the other hand most of you have voted for interactive simulation of time taken to transfer variety of file sizes over the network so this has got 19 votes out of 35 and I am going to say that look this is really not a valid one because it again depends upon I mean I don't have expect to have any exam question on how much time it takes to transfer a file over the network. So I really don't care about how long it takes to transfer a file over the network so essentially what I am saying is that the answer for which most of you voted for I can find a counter example which is suppose I want my students to learn how the mechanism of transfer happens then an interactive simulation which talks about the time taken for various files to transfer is not useful to me and also on the other hand the choice for which none of you have voted which is the video I can again find a counter example where we say that suppose I want to teach people how to connect the devices together then it is a useful video. So having said this I will pause here for a minute for you to reflect and think about what is the condition under which we make this choice of which video for what purpose. So we will do an interesting thing what we will do is now we are having seen one set of answers we are going to post the same question again and let every center answer again. So let us see what your answers are this time which is the majority answer this time. Okay so for the second round of polling on the same question what we find is more than 50 percent of the centers have voted for all of the above and a quick poll of the video and looking into what is happening at each center again shows a lot of people in animated discussion about when which technique of video or simulation has to be used. So in fact this is exactly what we were hoping would happen that after some debate and some thinking about the choices that we have made we realize that it is all of the above under the condition of which is the appropriate learning objective. So depending upon the learning objective is the choice of the type of simulation. So if the learning objective is how to connect wires together then the video may be the correct type of motion graphics to choose if the learning objective is how does a packet move across a network then the schematic would be the correct type of visualization to choose and if the learning objective is that how much time the two different files take to be transferred from a website to the client then the interactive simulation of the file transfer timings would be the correct type of visualization to choose and so therefore most of you seem to have now got to that point of saying that the answer is all of the above and it depends upon what the correct learning objective is or what the corresponding learning objective is. So we will now go on to talk about how we make this choice of appropriate visualization. So taking Q from the same point where we actually had example from computer science domain I have couple of other visualizations on the concept of packet transfer. We will show you those two animations or visualizations one after the other what they these two are of two different types and may be almost relating to the options which we had given in the poll we will again try to share the desktop and the first one you see is it has various interactions for the user to go back and forth it shows one sender and receiver side and when you click on play you see that a set of values appear on the left hand side as sender and in frame one they are sent to the receiver and receiver is receiving couple of them acknowledgement is sent and again the sender is sending the second frame based on the acknowledgement. This can be paused and you can also rewind this to start fresh the designer of this particular visualization has also given the reference from where this has been taken like chapter 11 of some book on data communication and networking. So this is one type of visualization right. So let us see the you can go back. So back and next actually talks about stages in the action in the entire process. So if the acknowledgement is received right now and if I click back then it will start from sending the first packet and then you will see that the entire process is shown again for the benefit of the user. Similarly next will go to the next set of action. The second visualization is also on packet transfer but it will give you a different scenario. It starts with animation of some icons and buttons. You have this previous and next button coming in and whenever you are ready you are supposed to click on next first. You see a scenario here a file is been sent from computer A to computer B over a network. This is quite similar to what you saw in the first simulation where there was a sender and a receiver. Here you see this file F I L E and A and B as the two ends of this network. When I click next this file is being converted to four packets. After every such step when the step is over a pop up comes here to prompt the user to click on the next button click when ready. So after you have finished reading. So there is an explanation given here the file is broken into smaller pieces called packets. Once I have read that I can click next and then the packets are labeled individually with origin destination and place in the original file. Now this the place in the file is first and now the packets are sent sequentially on the network. So you see that those are arranged one below the other and then they start traveling on the network. After traveling from the network when they reach there they have arrived at the destination but the computer has to reassemble the species in order to make sense out of that. So that is how it rearranges and then you see F I L E recreated again. So this was a demo created by people at Oregon. So we come back to the presentation. So all of you have seen this presentation. So let us now see a way to choose appropriate visualization for your topic. For this we are going to refer to some graphs made by researcher called Rini Weiss. So it actually starts with couple of points which we discussed in the summary where why to use visualization. So when we discuss the purposes. So this starts with the first purpose that will the trajectory and movement in your chosen topic enhance the instruction. So it is not only important to have trajectory of movement in your topic but it should also add to the instructional quality of instruction. So if it is going to be enhancing if it is not going to enhance the quality of instruction then animation may not be necessary in particular for that particular topic. For example there are situations where the animation is used but for cosmetic or attention grabbing or just motivation purpose. So if that is the function it is going to serve then this graph says that use it sparingly. Do not use it overboard because it will not serve the purpose what you are trying to use it for. On the other side if the trajectory and the movement which is inherent in your topic enhances the instruction then you should also figure out whether that which function is being served by that movement. So if that function is about presentation or clarification of certain things then animation should be useful but like we discussed during our poll it depends on the domain. So even though there was movement involved in packet transfer but if it is about clarification or presentation then animation should be the useful technique. So I will repeat these two sides of the graph once again for the benefit of the participants. If the trajectory or movement in your topic is not going to enhance the quality of instructions then animation is not necessary to be used. But if it is going to help you in presenting the topic or providing extra clarification to the students then animation should be useful. But the domain or the learning objective like we discussed last time what is that focus will determine how to use it. The next graph actually gives you further clarity on this like we saw if animation is not is if it is inherently tied in your subject and then we are going to use animation but within that so the first topic on the right hand on a right hand top talks about if it is not inherently tied to a subject then you just go to the figure 1 and it should solve the problem because the answer will be animation is not useful. So when you have come to the end of the first graph and yes it is going to be useful for you then try to classify the topic between whether it is a procedure or it is a concept or it is some kind of a principle to be taught. So what we mean by that is that the procedure why will animation enhance the teaching of a procedure is because of the equipment or the context which is not readily available like the example given by Professor Shridhar earlier about the registration column. So it is a huge machine where it is not readily available also it is so big that and the heat inside is so high that you cannot put in camera you cannot see inside. So these kind of context are highly recommended for the use of animation where you can also include the steps of procedure to facilitate a steady flow of knowledge transfer. Concepts are something where you have to have the stages where the changes are happening over time and if this is done then this will happen. So these scenarios of various simultaneous influences happening and change of time are very important in terms of concepts where animation is recommended by this graph but where there are simple facts or rules which are not connected to any other changes within the imagery or the state of object or that particular topic then animation might not be a useful tool to be used. So these are the details of this particular graph which we will be leaving for that. To repeat the second part of the graph when you saw that the animation is inherently tied to your subject try to classify the topic whether it is having a procedure to be explained or a concept. The procedure it is about equipment or context which is not readily available therefore animation can be useful and in terms of concepts where there is change over time and the object is changing its forms or things which are not visible to your naked eyes like atoms molecules and there is system impacted by simultaneous influences like you have you change the parameters and you want to see what happens like we saw in the robotic arm where you can change the lengths individually of every arm and the angle. So multiple influences reacting on a particular object is to be shown these type of topics actually are best suitable for using animation in the instruction. So now with this we will be having another activity of a worksheet which is related to your earlier assignment what you submitted a relaunch where you have written your learning objectives and also the assessment question related to your topic. So you have to start with your topic and use this graph 1 first and then the graph 2 to see if animation is useful to explain your topic. So the activity you can just start by using the. So what we will do is that the worksheet has also been uploaded on model. So essentially what you need to do is to take the learning objective that you wrote in the morning and put it through this graph and determine whether an animation is required for that learning objective or not. So that is one part of your worksheet and the second part of the worksheet is that suppose it turns out that animation is not required for the learning objective that you wrote in the morning find another learning objective in your topic or in your course for which animation is useful. So in the sense that find a procedure which you might want to show or a concept which needs to be explained. So that is essentially what is there in the worksheet and what we will do is we can you could work on the worksheet in the class or what you can do is we can do this along with the next lab the next lab is also on model and we want to say something about the lab. So what we will do is we will just give you some instruction about the lab also and then you can simply take a break have tea go to the lab finish this worksheet as well as the lab which is also connected to the worksheet itself and then come back at maybe 4.30 or so for the next at 5 o'clock for the muddy points or the clarification session. So we will just leave you with a few instructions for the lab and then we can break for tea.