Author: CAEN

Peer annotation support shifting from nb to Perusall

Posted on by CAEN

Collaborative peer annotation tools help students actively engage with textbooks or other reading materials in a course. Instructors assign textbooks, articles, or PDFs, and students annotate these documents and respond to each other’s comments and questions.

CAEN has run a local instance of one of these tools, nb, since 2015. This local service will be discontinued for Fall 2018. Instructors who wish to continue with nb can still use the free MIT-hosted service (where nb was developed).

An alternative service called Perusall has since emerged that provides many of the same features, also adds Canvas integration, and includes the ability to purchase and use textbooks from many publishers. As with nb, instructors can upload their own PDFs to Perusall, and there is no cost for instructors or students (except when purchasing textbooks).

If you are interested in trying one of these tools, Perusall’s help and support resources provide a good starting point. You can also contact CAEN to discuss the options, and get help with any questions you may have.

 

Lecture Capture Service manual control no longer requires Adobe Flash

Posted on by CAEN

While most instructors opt for pre-set schedules to make recordings using the Lecture Capture Service, the system allows for manual control in cases where live movement of the camera or impromptu starting-and-stopping of the recording is desired. Previously, using the manual control required a web browser with Adobe Flash support. Flash has been superseded by improved web technologies, and we are happy to report that this last dependency on Flash has been removed from the recording system.

The functionality and appearance is very similar to the previous version. To try it out, simply create a manual recording and choose to connect with the new control interface:

Starting Fall 2018, the old Flash-based interface will no longer be an option. Also note that we still offer M-Cam for manually controlling the recorder from an iOS device such as an iPhone or iPad.

 

LabVIEW Boot Camp for Summer 2018 (sponsored by CAEN)

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The LabVIEW Boot Camp is a compressed LabVIEW Core 1 and Core 2 training. Designed specifically for academic researchers, educators, and graduate students, this free, five-day hands-on course teaches you a basic understanding of coding with LabVIEW as well as the fundamental skills needed to develop applications using the state machine design pattern to process, display, and store real-world data and programmatically control a user interface. At the end of the course, you are given the opportunity to prepare for and take the Certified LabVIEW Associate Developer (CLAD) exam, a globally recognized entry-level certification exam for free.

The training will be held July 16 through 20 in the IOE Building, and is sponsored by CAEN. Space is limited, so registration is required to attend.

For more information on the LabVIEW Boot Camp and to register, visit: https://events.ni.com/profile/form/index.cfm?PKformID=0x247058abcd

 

Cable-free presentation available in CoE classrooms

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All 50 College of Engineering (CoE) classrooms are equipped with Apple TVs to allow the presentation of slides or other content without physically plugging-in a device. The type of connection supported, called “AirPlay,” is built into Apple devices including laptops, iPhones, and iPads. You do not need to be on a particular wireless network for this to work. Apple provides some instructions on how to use AirPlay:

AirPlay video from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

Use AirPlay to display video from your Mac on an HDTV

What if you are not using an Apple device? CAEN offers licenses for a utility called “AirParrot” to instructors using Windows-based computers and tablets in CoE classrooms. Note that it is necessary to connect to a special wireless network called “CAEN-Presenter” before AirParrot will work with any device. This network requires a password, which we can provide on request.

Why might you consider using wireless to display? One advantage is you do not need any special adapters, which may be needed to connect certain devices to the room’s HDMI or VGA cables. Also, if you have a tablet computer, wireless frees you to walk the stage and annotate in real-time, or even pass the device to a student to demonstrate a solution if desired.

What are the steps to get connected? It’s pretty simple. Just select the “Apple TV” source on the room’s touchscreen panel. Then connect your device to the AirPlay destination named for the room number, for example, “Dow 1013 Apple TV.” To ensure the connection to the display is coming from inside the classroom, a 4-digit code will be shown on the screen, and your device will prompt you for this code to enable the connection.

The big question: Is this all reliable? The wireless connection is typically very reliable, however it is possible that interference from other devices can cause a disconnection. CAEN is working to minimize this by relocating antennas and upgrading hardware as needed. If you run into any problems with wireless display, let us know at caen@umich.edu. A backup option is to use the wired connections at the lectern, and we are available to advise on what adapters, if any, would be needed for your device.

If you would like to meet with CAEN staff in a classroom to go over the process for getting connected, or if you have any other questions about presenting over a wireless connection, contact us anytime at caen@umich.edu.

 

Demystifying Deep Learning: A practical approach in MATLAB Seminar & Workshop March 13

Posted on by CAEN

Are you new to deep learning and want to learn how to use it in your work? Deep learning can achieve state-of-the-art accuracy in many human-like tasks such as naming objects in a scene or recognizing optimal paths in an environment. Please join us for a MathWorks Seminar and Workshop on Deep Learning using MATLAB, sponsored by CAEN.

Registration is required to attend. Please register at:​ www.mathworks.com/umich

Session 1 (Seminar) – Demystifying Deep Learning: A Practical Approach in MATLAB
When: Tuesday, March 13, 3:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Where: Duderstadt Center 3336 (Advanced Training Lab 1)

In this seminar, we’ll demonstrate new MATLAB features that simplify these tasks and eliminate the low-level programming. In doing so, we’ll decipher practical knowledge of the domain of deep learning. We’ll build and train neural networks that recognize handwriting, classify food in a scene, and figure out the drivable area in a city environment.

Along the way, you’ll see MATLAB features that make it easy to:

  • Manage extremely large sets of images
  • Visualize networks and gain insight into the black box nature of deep networks
  • Perform classification and pixel-level semantic segmentation on images
  • Import training data sets from networks such as GoogLeNet and ResNet
  • Import and use pre-trained models from TensorFlow and Caffe
  • Speed up network training with parallel computing on a cluster
  • Automate manual effort required to label ground truth
  • Automatically convert a model to CUDA to run on GPUs

Session 2 (Workshop) – Practical Applications of Deep Learning – A Hands-On MATLAB Workshop
When: Tuesday, March 13, 6:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Where: Bob & Betty Beyster Building 1670

Deep learning achieves human-like accuracy for many tasks considered algorithmically unsolvable with traditional machine learning. It is frequently used to develop applications such as face recognition, automated driving, and image classification.

In this hands-on workshop, you will write code and use MATLAB to:

  • Learn the fundamentals of deep learning and understand terms like “layers”, “networks”, and “loss”
  • Build a deep network that can classify your own handwritten digits
  • Access and explore various pre-trained models
  • Use transfer learning to build a network that classifies different types of food
  • Train deep learning networks on GPUs in the cloud
  • Learn how to use GPU code generation technology to accelerate inference performance

Anyone can register for the seminar, but if you plan on attending the workshop, the seminar is a prerequisite.

Reserve your spot now!

 

CAD software consulting hours for students

Posted on by CAEN

CAEN is piloting Winter term weekly office hours for students who need on-site help with a variety of CAD programs and tools. The weekly office hours are scheduled for Thursdays from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m. in the Wilson Student Team Project Center, conference room 1000. After the pilot, the program will be re-evaluated and adjusted to fit demand.

 

Box and Google Drive file streaming clients for your computer

Posted on by CAEN

Google and Box have released new file streaming clients for Windows and Mac OS. Google Drive File Stream and Box Drive are available for use now on student personal computers. These new clients make Box and Google storage appear as a network drive to your Mac and Windows computers. Instead of syncing all the files to your computer and taking up disk space, they instead only pull down files when you access them. Changes to files are reflected instantly to the cloud.

To install the newer Box Drive, first remove the older Box Sync client if you have it, and then follow the instructions at https://www.box.com/resources/downloads. You want to install the “Box Drive for Mac/Windows (public beta)” depending if you have a Mac or Windows computer. NOTE: Currently, Box Drive does not allow for offline access, nor can you lock/unlock files at the moment. Those features are expected in the near future.

To install the newer Google Drive File Stream, first remove the older Google Drive for Mac/Windows client, or the current Google Backup and Sync client,  if you have them installed. Then, follow the instructions at https://www.google.com/drive/download. You want to select the Get Started box under the “Business – Drive File Stream” section. NOTE: It is very important that if you run an anti-virus product that you exclude the Google Drive File Stream volume from anti-virus scanning. This is a known problem that will potentially bring your computer to a crawl as well as generate unnecessary network traffic.

CAEN Shapiro Lab to get more computers and new furniture during Winter term

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The CAEN Shapiro Lab will be expanded from 42 to 56 computers as soon as possible during the Winter term. This change will likely happen before Spring Break – we are currently waiting on the installation of more work tables and a network switch. We are also evaluating other possible Shapiro Lab enhancements for the future, including new furniture and chair upgrades.

 

Enhanced Gradebook functionality now available in Canvas

Posted on by CAEN

There are a number of enhancements that have been added to the Canvas Gradebook for this term. These features are intended to help instructors easily view and enter grades for students, making grading more flexible and intuitive. Additions include Late Policies, which allow instructors to set up rules and be more efficient about grading late and missing submissions.

Other new Gradebook enhancements include:

  • New menus with more filtering and sorting options
  • Visual crosshairs to make it easier to see the current student or assignment cell
  • Custom color coding for assignment status (late, missing, resubmitted, dropped, or excused)
  • Keyboard shortcuts to improve accessibility on grade entry
  • Capability to drag and drop total columns

Features coming soon include:

  • Ability to override final grades
  • Defining if grades should be posted automatically or manually

For the Winter 2018 term, New Gradebook must be manually enabled at the course level under Settings >> Feature Options. In future terms, it will be enabled automatically in all courses. Until then you can revert back to the old Gradebook, except in cases where you have added a grading policy.

Tips for using these enhancements can be found on the Canvas New Gradebook Guide. In addition, ITS has created a video screencast highlighting many of the new features on the Canvas at Michigan site.

New classroom & computer lab entrance display pilot

Posted on by CAEN

This term, CAEN is piloting new electronic displays outside select computer labs and College of Engineering classrooms. The displays show room availability at a glance, and allow searching for rooms based on course or event name. For CAEN computer labs, the displays show the current workstation availability. All displays will indicate when a recording is in progress using the lecture capture service.

In addition to information about the rooms, the displays show DPSS alerts for campus. Also, to aid accessibility, a two-finger swipe down the screen will speak the room’s current status. An update later this month will add building and campus maps, directions to building lost-and-found locations, and emergency information.

Displays have already been installed outside of the following classrooms:

  • 1670 Beyster
  • 1690 Beyster
  • 1008 EECS
  • 1012 EECS

and the CAEN computer labs in:

  • B505 Pierpont Commons
  • B507 Pierpont Commons

We value your feedback on these new displays. Feel free to send your comments and suggestions to us at caen@umich.edu.