Low Tech Zoom Teaching

[Mike Brazeau]

Last week I was asked by our Membership Secretary at our Golden Horseshoe Woodturners Guild to assist a new member, Gerry, with processing some wood he wanted to ultimately use on his new to him lathe. Gerry is completely new to woodturning. After an email introduction we spoke and I started doing some basic setup photos and then video clips to send to him. Over the past 20 years I have accumulated about 4 Gb of woodturning information I have sorted into about 60 folders and pulled numerous items from that as well. Today we did an almost two hour Zoom session on mounting and roughing the exterior of a 10” bowl from some box elder I picked up in November of 2019.

Video started with my iPhone 11 mounted on a Monopod taped to my Oneway 2436 tailstock on an angle looking down towards the headstock and some basic spindle work. From that I started playing with ideas to support my iPhone and ended up with a simple system of a 2x2 wood post with a 1/2” dowel at the top mounted to a small board clamped to lathe bed and a horizontal piece with 1/2” holes and dowels which allow horizontal rotation fitted with a wooden tilt mechanism on a 1/2” post, with an old screw camera clip I had, holding a 1/4” x 20 TPI tripod mount for smart phones I got from Amazon for about $15. I think my next rendition will be something mounted to the side of a wall cabinet behind the lathe, projecting out from the wall and adapting my current holder approach to it, so I do not run into the pole base on the lathe ways.

Gerry has a Zoom subscription and yesterday we tried some basic stuff to establish that we could transmit and receive a Zoom session from our workshops using the devices we have. We are both Apple users. Our rural home is on DSL internet that runs at about 2 to 3 Mb/s download and less than 500 KB/s upload. I used my iPhone 11 for video only and logged in to Zoom unidentified, as I have registered myself on the IPad Pro 2020 to Zoom. I had my iPad Pro 2020 running only audio with my ID and used Air Pods that our kids gave me for my birthday last December, as microphone and speakers. That way the tool noise was pretty much not audible. He said the audio/video was excellent. During our trial yesterday I was able to use Zoom on my Win 10 Notebook and identify the iPhone 11 as a second camera.

Today’s session was very successful. The bright sun was creating a bit too much light from the two south facing windows I have behind the lathe, which I can easily block out. The next session will be the bowl interior. Gerry has rigged up a mount for his iPhone in his shop as well. We are going to venture into “I do it” and “Gerry does it” sessions so I can watch him and coach and he can question my actions. Not a lot of technology and stuff we already had. I had been wanting to venture into this for some time and this pushed me over the edge. I do have to give credit to the couple of IRD sessions from the AAW that I have watched and the Record Power sessions that I have been taking in since last December. The same should be able to be accomplished using FaceTime or Facebook Messenger Video Chat in which case I would just use the iPhone. I believe some of the video chats now accommodate a small group. Lots of fun!

 

[Emiliano Achaval]

Your weakest link is as you know your slow-speed internet connection. The minimum for a decent enjoyable session is 5Mbs upload, so people can see you without glitches. Teaching one friend or a "student" we call it "virtual hand holding". Possibilities are endless, you are right, lots of fun. I just did IRD number 65 of the Covid era. I have 350 MBs download and 30 uploads, a Zoom business account so I can do it in HD.

 

[Mike Brazeau]

Your weakest link is as you know your slow-speed internet connection. The minimum for a decent enjoyable session is 5Mbs upload, so people can see you without glitches. Teaching one friend or a "student" we call it "virtual hand holding". Possibilities are endless, you are right, lots of fun. I just did IRD number 65 of the Covid era. I have 350 MBs download and 30 uploads, a Zoom business account so I can do it in HD.

Yes, Emiliano it is a struggle with DSL. Initially I was sending video files of about one minute clips. Even moving a file to Google Drive is a struggle in patience. I reduced a couple of files with iMovie but it is limiting. To be able to communicate as you would with the student beside you adds so much to the exercise.

Construction crews are working in the community two concessions south of us installing conduit for fibre optic and we are hoping that it comes to us by year end. One thing the Covid Pandemic has done is spur government to invest in internet infrastructure. It is heartening in this case to measure the progress as Gerry can see what he should be doing. We are both having fun In spite of the system weakness.

 

[Michael Lamka]

My older brother teaches yoga from his kitchen in Sausalito, CA via zoom. With his studio and other venues shut down due to the pandemic he had to figure a way to keep teaching - no income, no food. Or kitchen to cook it in.

I don't take his classes because when I see yoga done/performed/practiced, an hour later I hurt in places I didn't know I had. I try not to imagine what would happen if I actually did it!

Mike, that's a great setup!

 

[GRJensen]

I ran an ethernet cable from my router to the shop (about 120') and connected it to a WiFi extender. I get better up/down speeds in the shop than anywhere else in our house. We have used my setup for several club demos.

 

[Gerald Lawrence]

I ran an ethernet cable from my router to the shop (about 120') and connected it to a WiFi extender. I get better up/down speeds in the shop than anywhere else in our house. We have used my setup for several club demos.

I did the same for our club generated Zoom sessions and as you stated it worked well.

 

[Mike Brazeau]

Thanks both Geralds. Yesterday we had considerable problems with video on Zoom. In spite of the problems, Gerry is making progress with his bowl gouge and that makes it worthwhile. He finds the video aspect really worthwhile. Tonight I was watching the Record Power IRD and in our kitchen area, where things usually work, I was having issues With Zoom. Moved to my den where our router is and it settled down. I could run a temporary cable down a hall to my garage and also have some Cat 5 I installed 15 years ago but never Finished off and activated. Might be worthwhile to add some extenders either to the cables or wireless.

 

[Gary Beasley]

Something you might want to look at for mounting the cellphone is a rig like this. You can also get them that fit cupholders which create more options for placement with a little re-engineering. Nice thing about this one is the wireless charging so the phone stays charged up while you are working.
TORRAS Car Mount Wireless Charger

 

[Mike Brazeau]

Something you might want to look at for mounting the cellphone is a rig like this. You can also get them that fit cupholders which create more options for placement with a little re-engineering. Nice thing about this one is the wireless charging so the phone stays charged up while you are working.
TORRAS Car Mount Wireless Charger

Thanks Gary. The holder I have is quite adequate and I had used on a camera tripod before this quite successfully. I have a very simple holder clip that plugs into the car vent and have Apple Car Play which must be connected by an Apple USB-Lightening connector so it does charge, There are some wireless dongles starting to show up for Car Play.

 

[John Jordan]

Can you not use your cell phone connection? Sorry if you have said already.

John

 

[Gerald Lawrence]

Can you not use your cell phone connection? Sorry if you have said already.

John

Hot spots are usually not strong enough to rely on for Zoom , but if you have a strong signal it can work. Problem being is if you use a wireless signal they do go up and down without warning making for jerky video at best or no video at worst.

 

[Mike Brazeau]

Can you not use your cell phone connection? Sorry if you have said already.

John

Hi John. Unfortunately, another part of rural Irving is not optimum cell service either. I upgraded our modem with Bell and the tech tweaked our line and installed a newer version line filter So that our upload speed almost doubled but compared to what city folks get, is laughable. The newer modem has a 5 Ghz WiFi band which is somewhat faster but the underlying issue is still DSL service. I also bought a 50 foot Cat 7 cable and my son had a D-Link Extender that was not being used, so have tried it too. Our schools are still closed in Ontario and speeds are up and down. We have been at it about a month and in spite of these issues are making progress.

 

[John Jordan]

Hi John. Unfortunately, another part of rural Irving is not optimum cell service either. I upgraded our modem with Bell and the tech tweaked our line and installed a newer version line filter So that our upload speed almost doubled but compared to what city folks get, is laughable. The newer modem has a 5 Ghz WiFi band which is somewhat faster but the underlying issue is still DSL service. I also bought a 50 foot Cat 7 cable and my son had a D-Link Extender that was not being used, so have tried it too. Our schools are still closed in Ontario and speeds are up and down. We have been at it about a month and in spite of these issues are making progress.

Glad you're sticking with it and having fun.

JJ