Teacher's low-tech laptop hack to display handwritten notes for online class

https://mothership.sg/2020/09/cd-zoom-hack-camera-teacher/

by miles • 6 years ago

704 267 6 years ago

bentpins3• 6 years ago

Maybe I'm missing something but how is the image so clear? CDs don't have a mirror like surface, they reflect light in unusual ways

formerly_proven• 6 years ago

Use a pressed CD (which are good mirrors at this angle), not a blank CD (which are tinted).

jeffbee2• 6 years ago

I just pointed a CD at my face and it's pretty much a mirror. What unusual reflection did you expect?

bentpins3• 6 years ago

Some rainbow diffraction I guess. It has been a long time since I've used a CD https://www.google.com/search?tbm=isch&q=cd

the_svd_doctor• 6 years ago

I also don't really get it. Looks too clear and sharp for a CD reflection.

TaylorAlexander• 6 years ago

Well I noticed it's a CD-RW which is a peculiar device, so maybe it doesn't reflect the same as normal CDs.

simias2• 6 years ago

The rather shallow angle probably helps a lot. On top of that the camera probably has some form of auto white balance which will counteract the tint the CD will give to the image.

Here's a quick proof of concept using a random CD and my phone's camera: https://svkt.org/~simias/up/20200914-000627_psx-cd-reflectio...

Note that the color of the reflection is not much different from a normal picture (visible at the bottom). For added difficulty I used an original PlayStation disc, that's dyed black: https://svkt.org/~simias/up/20200914-000836_psx-cd.jpeg

jeffbee2• 6 years ago

It's very HN that we've been trolled into debating the irrefutable, widely-known, totally obvious fact that a CD reflects light.

gibolt2• 6 years ago

The quarter helping to hold down the CD may also contribute by blocking overhead inbound interference.

djmips• 6 years ago

I think you probably haven't played around with CDs more than just to play them.

superhuzza• 6 years ago

I really like how her hack doesn't involve using another video feed, which makes it a lot more accessible to anyone with a laptop.

One improvement I can see - maybe better to tape the pencil with the eraser point up, so you're less likely to accidentally stab yourself with the pencil if moving the laptop or CD?

rriepe• 6 years ago

We could drastically cut costs with a nickel instead of a quarter.

tzs4• 6 years ago

2 pennies would be cheaper. Here are US coin weights, in grams:

  5.670 quarter
  2.268 dime
  5.000 nickel
  2.500 penny

max23_• 6 years ago

I have the same thought when I see the pencil tip is pointing upward instead of the other end.

Probably try to lower it down enough to fit one CD.

noisy_boy• 6 years ago

The pencil's orientation might be deliberate as the eraser provides additional stability due to its friction with the back of the laptop.

_qwfv• 6 years ago

Clever. But also tragic. The poor teachers who have been caught in the middle of all this really make me feel sad.

Teaching is already a rough gig, and being forced to improvise with limited to no support from communities, schools, or governments.

notatoad3• 6 years ago

Being forced to improvise with limited support is a fairly normal situation for teachers tbh.

jsjohnst• 6 years ago

But should it be is more the point I think GP was making?

thomasfortes• 6 years ago

I had to buy pens for white boards even though I was volunteering to help students prepare to university exams as a math/physics teacher, I wasn't getting a single penny and I had to pay for minimal resources because they were only available for free for the hired teachers.

I have nothing but a giant respect for teachers that are usually underpaid for the giant importance that they carry on their shoulders, a good teacher can help completely change the life of their students.

gumby• 6 years ago

...in some countries like the USA, India, Nigeria... Typically governments find education a good area to invest in (including two of the three counties I used as examples).

entire-name• 6 years ago

That is precisely why it is tragic.

macspoofing6• 6 years ago

being forced to improvise with limited to no support from communities, schools, or governments.

Everyone is trying to figure out how to continue life during this pandemic. Why would you expect all levels to have this figured out?

JadeNB3• 6 years ago

>being forced to improvise with limited to no support from communities, schools, or governments.
Everyone is trying to figure out how to continue life during this pandemic. Why would you expect all levels to have this figured out?

There's a big difference between, on one hand, complaining "why haven't communities, schools, and governments figured this all out?", which would be a ridiculous complaint and which no-one is making; and, on the other hand, observing that communities, schools, and governments have collectively thrown up their hands and declared that it's all the teacher's responsibility, which is a real and justified complaint.

josefrichter2• 6 years ago

Maybe the teacher used this because it’s actually simple and using specialized hardware would be just waste and hassle?

Pfhreak3• 6 years ago

I mean maybe. But a basic Wacom is like $100. Surely that would be preferable?

doctorOb2• 6 years ago

K-12 is a terrible system in the US which seems entirely reliant on the desperation of people who devoted 4-8 years of education to retain their jobs in a very limited market.

golergka• 6 years ago

Wouldn't writing on that transfer the pressure through the notebook to the keyboard? How would you avoid random key presses?

notatoad3• 6 years ago

You don't, probably.

As long as you don't have a chat window focused and accidentally press the enter key, you can just backspace out any accidental keypress that might happen.

azernik• 6 years ago

If your notebook is nice and stiff, the pressure will be pretty evenly distributed across the whole keyboard. Keypresses should be rare with such low pressure per key.

s0rce• 6 years ago

Looks like a notebook. If its a reasonably thick/sturdy notebook and you don't push down extremely hard then it doesn't press the keys.

miles2• 6 years ago

Hardware solution: plastic tray over the keys.

Software solution: Keyboard Cleaner http://jan.prima.de/~jan/plok/archives/48-Keyboard-Cleaner.h...

jvm_• 6 years ago

Hardware solution: $1 plastic cutting board

rightbyte• 6 years ago

My laptop has a "lock keyboard" key on fn.

joezydeco• 6 years ago

My kid has an Osmo kit that did the same trick with a little mirrors that fit an iPad perfectly:

https://www.playosmo.com

Cactus20182• 6 years ago

Official app for students\teachers https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id1502489790

blackrock• 6 years ago

Clever. Now someone from China needs to make a plastic mirror reflection mount device to put on top of your laptop camera.

miles2• 6 years ago

https://www.ipevo.com/products/mirror-cam

srtjstjsj4• 6 years ago

Need a periscope version so it doesn't awkward cram onto the keyboard.

seraphsf• 6 years ago

My kids use an educational app series called Osmo, which comes with a reflector like this for iPad (1). Field of view and distortion may be an issue, but I bet a vendor could easily make something similar designed for this use case.

It also looks like there are $6 clip-on mirrors (2) that would also do an admirable job, perhaps with more stability and control than the pencil-balancing trick.

(1) Osmo - Base for iPad https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07JNZ4J67/

(2) Flexible 4" Clip On Mirror for Computer Monitor - Convex Desk Mirror to See People Behind You - Perfect in Any Office Cubicle Environment https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B078NB3JV2/

Cactus20182• 6 years ago

Official app support for teachers:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id1502489790

https://www.playosmo.com/blog/introducing-osmo-projector/

https://twitter.com/PlayOsmo/status/1241152565083090947

HumblyTossed2• 6 years ago

but I bet a vendor could easily make something similar designed for this use case.

True, but this cost the teacher zip (assuming supplies on hand) instead of $38US.

dchuk5• 6 years ago

My wife is a kindergarten teacher, and has been back at (virtual) teaching now for 2 weeks. Whatever your political persuasion, it’s pretty mind blowing how little the districts prepared for and invested in a virtual year. It’s not exactly like this snuck up on them, we’ve been locked down for 6 months now. You’d think they’d have decided on common software platforms, provided some training for the teachers, something.

Luckily, my wife is fairly tech savvy so is hanging in there, but even just general things like how to have an effective virtual planning meeting is just not something she’s really ever had to do. So I’ve been trying to help her and her coworkers, like recording a half hour video where I just explained all the different capabilities of Zoom, and another where I explained Trello and Google slides.

Just sad how the school administration’s plan boiled down to burying their head in the sand and hoping it would all go away. Really bolsters the narrative that they just don’t care about the teachers.

seibelj• 6 years ago

they just don’t care about teachers

I think you mean, they don’t care about students? Because that’s truly who is hurt here.

briefcomment2• 6 years ago

It seems like they're focused on politics, since that's what gets them paid. If school choice comes around, they'll probably change their priorities.

dchuk5• 6 years ago

I mean, for every 20-30 kids, there’s also an adult trying to educate them. Everyone’s fucked in the situation, and all you need to do is follow the money to understand the motivations. For example, my wife has to take real time attendance on a zoom call every morning in a 30 minute window, when everything else can be asynchronous. Why? Because schools are funded by attendance of the students, and they couldn’t be bothered to think of an alternative way to handle things.

JadeNB3• 6 years ago

> they just don’t care about teachers
I think you mean, they don’t care about students? Because that’s truly who is hurt here.

It is true in some transitive sense that the people making these decisions don't care about students, but insisting on that phrasing seems either hostile to, or at least minimising of the importance of and impact on, teachers.

The school or district administration's role is to care for the students, yes, but (at least in the classroom) they do that indirectly, by choosing, training, and equipping skilled and qualified teachers.

An administration who is showing contempt for its teachers is thus, indirectly, showing contempt for its students; but it's directly showing contempt for its teachers, and cutting them out of the story says that the harm they experience is not important. Teachers already are, like so many essential workers, expected to do their job endlessly without any commensurate reward; what is the point of denying the harm (for example, by saying or implying that they aren't truly hurt) that is done to them when they are not given even the basic tools to translate their passion for teaching and care for their students into commensurate results?

(I would also be opposed to someone responding to claims of harm to the students by saying "why not focus on the teachers?—they're the ones who are truly hurt." There's no monopoly on suffering; we can acknowledge one group's suffering without pretending that they're the only ones.)

taneq• 6 years ago

Can't it be both? I think it's both.

peterwwillis4• 6 years ago

The teachers will work themselves into an early grave just to help the kids. Nobody's doing that for teachers. Teachers are more at risk of actually dying when in-person learning is forced on them as some school districts have done. And they have their livelihood to think about (many live a little more than paycheck to paycheck).

Comparatively, the kids aren't dying, they don't have bills to pay, they don't work overtime. Their parents may even be able to pull them from school, or homeschool. Worst case they might be held back a year.

The students will survive this, but the teachers literally might not.

chrisgd• 6 years ago

Exactly. My 8 year old is online and he has at least 8 apps he is responsible for checking or turning in work. And none of them talk to each other but clearly the district signed up for a bunch of different things

deevus• 6 years ago

My partner graduated as a primary school teacher at the end of last year, and this pandemic bs has caused her to not have a single day of work since March or April. Casual days were just starting to pick up but after lockdown there has been no casual work at all.

darkerside• 6 years ago

Never assume malice where incompetence would suffice. I've found it to be generally true that when people don't know how to solve a problem, they will ignore it. This would have been a great time to bring in consultants on remote work. A nationally organized program would have been ideal so you could benefit from scale in doing sessions, and avoid patchwork solutions.

Too bad our DoE is completely dysfunctional, led by a person who likely prefers it not to exist, a pattern for this administration.

briefcomment2• 6 years ago

I think it can be a mixture of both. People who don't have the drive, goodwill, and skills (i.e. incompetance) to take on extra work will sometimes willfully ignore problems (i.e. malice). This only increases in an environment where demand is locked in for whatever reason. And it gets even worse when replacing the supply is hamstrung by bureaucracy.

dchuk5• 6 years ago

It’s both incompetence and complete cowardice in the face of an extreme challenge.

xmprt• 6 years ago

I don't think anyone here is claiming that malice is the reason the system is like this. There's so much incompetence from leadership at all levels that the situation we're in now was pretty much inevitable.

ragebol• 6 years ago

At what point does being incompetent turn malicious, if you are in a position of leadership? Choosing to continue ignoring a real problem you cannot handle is pretty bad. At least get some advice or allow competent people to take the wheel. Of course in this instance, the blame flows uphill and then falls of a cliff.

Shivetya• 6 years ago

I know its cliche to blame the administration but let us be honest here. The Department of Education has rarely been a productive resource with regards to educating in the United States. It has been around since only 1979 and for the most part been just another means for the Administrative branch of the US Government to extend its reach; effectively passing regulations and such without Congressional need. These tend to take the form of "significant guidance letters" and are used as a club to change rules on threat of losing Federal dollars.

The current budget is 81 billion dollars. We have spent more than a trillion on that department since its founding only to see little to no improvements.

If you want to see where most local school systems get in trouble simply look at the lavishness expended on new schools appearances instead of focusing on the needs of students. Where the teacher to non teacher ratio can be upside down yet all funded under the education banner.

The DOE isn't the problem you think it is, it is however nearly entirely useless and like other recently created "Departments" are a means to expand the power of one branch of government at the expense of others.

kbenson2• 6 years ago

it’s pretty mind blowing how little the districts prepared for and invested in a virtual year.

I think you're underestimating the effect of poor direction from their districts, and in turn poor direction to the districts from the state and federal government on this.

Up until a month or so before the start of the school semester, we were still receiving communications about "if we start with in-classroom learning". These schools have set budgets, and large expenditures are planned and paid for over years, and to be faced with a hard fork in the road choice over a summer about whether to put all your eggs into distance learning (when many politicians were vowing students would be in classrooms) or to try for a hybrid approach, or to assume the politicians know what they're talking about and kids will all be in class come late August/early September, it's not hard to see how this situation could turn out as bad as it had.

Extreme circumstances require solid leadership. All it would have taken would have been the President (or even someone high in the Department of Education with the President's blessing, so it wasn't contradicted a day later) to say "we're hoping students will be able to return to class come the start of school, but we're allocating funds and directing districts to prepare for the eventuality that it may not happen, either overall or in their locality." and that clear signal that schools needed to prepare for this and would be supported in doing so would have made all the difference.

This whole year has been a comedy of errors. Like so many of those, what you're really seeing is just a tragedy.

dchuk5• 6 years ago

I very much agree. The whole situation is just crossing fingers and hoping things will go away as a replacement for pragmatism in the face of no good options. Complete failure of leadership at every single level.

lallysingh• 6 years ago

I think your TL;DR is "shit flows downhill.". Teachers aren't near the top.

cik• 6 years ago

I can't agree here. Boards could have prepared (not spent) by splitting into preparation teams for all three eventualities, producing a plan for each scenario. In each case they could have gathered freely available resources (Youtube videos, websites!) for the associated and chosen technology set. They could have gathered and organized these items into something as free, and as simple as a Microsoft Word document - something they already have. This information could be passed upstream until such time that a decision was made. For those boards that had summer education hours, the time could have been allocated to familiarization with the learning materials and technologies.

I can heartily attest that even boards that were 100% planning on remote learning in April (I'm looking at you TDSB, YRDSB, TCSB in Toronto area) did literally none of this. How do I know - teachers all over the family, and my own efforts to literally help a private school board do this. I'd also note the private board spent zero dollars until the day before the first day of school.

It costs money to purchase things. It costs time to train people. But when you literally have the board "working" during the summer, and not on a curriculum, this is really just an indictment of an inability to organize.

barney54• 6 years ago

Education in the United States is run at the local and state level. Also, The US Department of Education can only spend money they has been appropriated by Congress. When Congress hasn’t appropriated federal funds for the US Department of Education to send to local school districts for remote learning, they generally can’t send money no matter how worthy the expenditure would be.

felipemnoa2• 6 years ago

>or even someone high in the Department of Education with the President's blessing, so it wasn't contradicted a day later

Very good chance of getting contradicted even with the president's blessing, most likely by the president himself.

earthboundkid• 6 years ago

I don't understand why in-person and hybrid would be planned separately. Any realistic plan for in-person has to account for periodic positive tests followed by isolation, that is, you have to plan to be able to switch to virtual with little or no notice if one person in a group is infected. If you planned for in-person without also planning for virtual, you weren't actually planning, you were just bullshitting.

icelancer• 6 years ago

> it’s pretty mind blowing how little the districts prepared for and invested in a virtual year.

Is it? I have two kids in grade school and it was eminently obvious. My partner thought they'd get their shit together and was shocked when they didn't; school year delayed, laptops not ready (we live in a lower income area, not all families have means to afford devices), and the teachers completely unprepared to adapt to online learning.

I told my partner we should move the kids into private schooling that was prepared for it or just home school for a year while keeping them enrolled in the district to keep tax money local. They said to give the school a chance.

Government-run services are incredibly awful at adapting to anything in a "short" period of time, time and time again. Try getting permits for a house or business. Anyone who runs a small business inherently understands how generally useless government agencies are.

dchuk5• 6 years ago

I didn’t mean I was expecting them to nail it and am surprised they didn’t, I meant my mind was blown that they whiffed so hard that it doesn’t seem like they even swung the bat.

sixothree• 6 years ago

When the first two cases in my city were reported there was a swirl of questions related to where those people had been and who they had been in contact with. There were no answers. We weren't going to do contact tracing or take any measures to contain this thing. That was the eye-opening moment for me.

We've had 6 months to prepare and instead we spent the summer arguing about masks. Incredible to look back on the lack of leadership and planning at all levels.

Never in my life have I been so disappointed with the people around me.

Twirrim• 6 years ago

My wife is a kindergarten teacher, and has been back at (virtual) teaching now for 2 weeks. Whatever your political persuasion, it’s pretty mind blowing how little the districts prepared for and invested in a virtual year. It’s not exactly like this snuck up on them, we’ve been locked down for 6 months now. You’d think they’d have decided on common software platforms, provided some training for the teachers, something.

I have to say our school district has been great. They've picked standard central platform (https://www.schoology.com/) that provides all the links the kids need, been training the teachers on them and got them support. Under that portal they've got just a few specific websites that serve a central purpose. Teachers are allocating work under one portal, though it might mean they need to go use a special interactive maths website or something on another site, but they have SSO working so it's smooth and effortless. It did take a long time for the state to make decisions and make proper resources available, which severely tied the school district's hands, but they did their best to assume the most pessimistic situation they could and worked towards that while waiting for the funds to be released for more.

Apart from the screw ups around initial passwords on email accounts it has been an incredibly smooth process. My 3rd grade kid hasn't had to seek help from us for the technical side at all after initial logging in.

rorykoehler2• 6 years ago

Remote kindergarten? What's the point?

Cthulhu_5• 6 years ago

Cynically, keeping kids occupied so that parents can work. This is also (IMO) why in my country (NL) and others they are and have been so pushy on opening up the schools again, because it's a hit on employee availability and productivity.

The other less cynical factor of course is kids' education, but at the same time, ours was homeschooled for a while during the pandemic before the summer vacation and he's learned a lot more and more broad things than he did in his own school (history through youtube, music / singing er... also through youtube, maths, etc)

skunkworker• 6 years ago

It's sad how unprepared districts were over this summer when they could have been prioritizing and figuring out solutions. Within about 2 hours of working through workflows I was able to help out a family member in primary education figure out what could be bought to buy and what kinds of questions to ask their administration.

In the end we made a high value and bang-for-your-buck setup by purchasing great but older and used components such as a 1920x1200 IPS U2412m monitor off ebay for $99. A ring light with camera mount, Apple Pencil, AirServer for showing the iPad on screen and being able to cast. Amongst other components I wasn't using and let them borrow like a Apple Trackpad and wireless keyboard.

The thing that saddened me was teachers who only found out weeks before the start of school were having to figure out their setups and were unaware of how technology could be integrated for a benefit and didn't know what they didn't know. Stuff like using an iPad with an Apple Pencil and AirServer on a mac to cast a lesson drawn onto the desktop and then share that with a zoom meeting.

mschuster91• 6 years ago

It’s not exactly like this snuck up on them, we’ve been locked down for 6 months now. You’d think they’d have decided on common software platforms, provided some training for the teachers, something.

In Germany we have the same problem. A side effect of our politicians not wanting to modernize anything fundamental in the education system for years.

Hell, Bavaria still bans cellphones in schools.

Thlom2• 6 years ago

This is an aside, but is there a curriculum in kindergarten in your country? Kindergartens were closed for a couple of months in my country, but there were no virtual "teaching" at all. I don't know what in the lords name my kids would get out of any virtual teaching. It's not like it's a school where there's things to learn. They mostly play outside and at most learn to sit by a table and eat a meal, to get dressed and put on their shoes and how to hold a pencil. And stuff like that.

I find it interesting how different pre-school is in different countries.

tallanvor• 6 years ago

What you think of as kindergarten would be termed daycare in the US, or potentially preschool, depending on the age of the children.

In the US, kindergarten is the first year of compulsory education - traditionally children would go for half a day, but I think more and schools offer it as a full day now to take into account having both parents in the workplace.

JD557• 6 years ago

My mother is a kindergarten teacher and was "teaching remotely", which was pretty much setting up a shared google drive with parents, sharing with them weekly activities and then asking the parents to send pictures/videos of the kids performing the activities.

There is indeed a curriculum here. It's obviously pretty lightweight and not very strict, but kids are expected to know things like animal names/sounds, the ABC, have some musical/coordination skills...

panzagl2• 6 years ago

The US has decided that the way to increase the educational opportunity of disadvantaged kids is to put them into school earlier and earlier- there are programs which put kids into public education as early as 3 years old. The fear of 'falling behind' other countries has turned Kindergarten from an optional half-day of play and socialization to a full day program with a real curriculum- not just basic reading/math but in many cases science and social studies standards.

goldenManatee• 6 years ago

Consider posting your tutorial on YouTube for other teachers to watch and spread.

choeger• 6 years ago

It is kind of sad, but according to my observations the age of the children is proportional to the degree of organization and proactivity shown by their teachers.

Of course, administration could and should have helped. And maybe I am not seeing a lot of things going on, but I did not notice teachers organising themselves, sharing materials or video lectures, or curating literature for their students.

The frustrating aspect of remote schooling is that there are thousands of underemployed teachers, there is a network that allows every one of them to reach out to millions of students. And yet all I ever heard was about single teachers being stressed to prepare and correct exercises for the maybe 100 students the would have met in-person otherwise.

yomly• 6 years ago

Cambridge University fully committed to a full-remote year of teaching back in May. At the time this seemed slightly radical, but really they just gave everyone (students, teachers and administrators) a full 5 months to PLAN around a DECISION.

Meanwhile, other universities like KCL and LSE were still playing "wait and see" until even a few weeks ago.

Even if Cambridge were wrong, and everything is all well and good and we'll be home by Christmas it'll be easier and cheaper to revert back to normal than the clusterfuck that will be going on in places stuck in limbo/denial.

As anyone with some experience knows - trying to plan during instability or planning for two eventualities is basically impossible and a whole bunch of institutions AND countries have pissed away the past 6 months.

Kudos to Cambridge for showing some strong leadership.

an_opabinia• 6 years ago

Student weren't going to leave Cambridge no matter what. They could offer a subpar year and everyone would still "show up." Same reason Harvard can charge $55k for watching its free videos this year.

In April parents were already talking about "pods" as an alternative to remote learning in K-12 schools.

If the average K-12 school wasn't promising what parents wanted - in person education - the parents would get it somewhere else, pulling their student and the ~10k funding that comes with the student right from the school.

This was the ONLY factor at play and is highly predictive of the preparedness of remote learning at various institutions.

The bigger takeaway is that parents, not students or teachers, are almost always the antagonists.

tgv• 6 years ago

My wife works at an institute for higher education that's allowed to call itself "university of applied sciences" abroad. Their board has come up with the silliest of policy documents over the summer, which can almost be summarized as "strive for high quality education, and keep safe", leaving all of the practical matters to be decided in 2 weeks time by the department heads. There didn't even think of some way to coordinate head counts among departments that share buildings. On their website's front page, there's a link "Corona virus -> read more", which gives a 404. That's a "university".

Those who can't, teach. And those who can't teach, apparently become director of education.

sjg0072• 6 years ago

The common software platforms like google meet, seesaw and even zoom are not sufficient.

doctorOb2• 6 years ago

A teacher friend's district claimed to be investing in training their teachers, but all it boiled down to was a high level overview of google docs, with no guidance on adapting a curriculum.

ugh123• 6 years ago

Our school district, LAUSD, spent most of the summer arguing with their union and even delayed roll out of the program citing "we've finally come to an agreement with the union about...".

Regardless, I do think teachers are putting up with a lot and likely stressed more than usual while their leaders fail miserably.

spaceisballer• 6 years ago

Thankfully our county did prepare and I’m actually fairly impressed because I’m hearing horror stories from other friends in different counties. It would have been extremely helpful if our Department of Education was out ahead of this, instead Betsy DeVos has been absent while the President has been saying we need to have kids back in person. Absence of leadership is the theme of this administration. I’m not sure how anyone in the world can look at the US as a leader anymore.

daemoens• 6 years ago

Every part of our government failed with this pandemic. From federal to state to county, no one really took it seriously. Both sides fucked this one up.

Symbiote2• 6 years ago

Another option is to use a mobile phone and whatever can work as a "tripod". I used a large clothes peg and the lamp over my dining table.

There are apps that will stream the image from the phone to the computer, and in Zoom it can be added as a second video feed. That means the class can see the teacher's face as well as the paper.

I tried a few apps, but I don't remember which worked, or their names, except for https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.dev47apps....

dddddaviddddd4• 6 years ago

I use this app over a USB connection. The phone (Pixel 3a) used to overheat but I picked up a USB fan which keeps it cool. Only downside is no virtual webcam driver on FreeBSD, so I boot to Windows for video chats.

Ayesh• 6 years ago

Some apps can stream to a browser over LAN.

Cthulhu_5• 6 years ago

How is a video streaming app making your phone overheat? Doesn't that phone have specialized hardware for video processing?

jedimastert• 6 years ago

I've been using a phone gorilla tripod meant for vloggers to take all of my meetings on so I can keep my laptop screen clear. It's been rather nice

mrfusion• 6 years ago

Wouldn’t the text be a mirror image (backwards)

dddddaviddddd4• 6 years ago

Zoom has a setting to mirror video.

virtuous_signal• 6 years ago

I had the same question (and tried it with my webcam app and a handheld mirror just to make sure I wasn't crazy) but I see another commenter has mentioned Zoom's feature.

josefrichter2• 6 years ago

Fascinating how the article has “how it works” explanation, despite showing the picture right above that.

mxuribe2• 6 years ago

For a nation that so unwisely overspends on other foolish things, and not enough nor intelligently on education, thus leaving school districts lacking in the basics - which require teachers to hack their way through classes...yes, i can imagine the author(s) might assume that such an audience might need extra help in understanding.

Disclaimer: I'm an American and while i'm often proud of my country, i acknowledge how awful our collective priorities have become with education in general suffering from it...and at the risk of sounding political (apologies)...Neither of the 2 major political parties seems to have the answer. <sigh>

armagon• 6 years ago

I realize politics is frowned on here, and there is much I'd like to say yet won't, but do take a look at https://articlesofunity.org/.

ClumsyPilot3• 6 years ago

Well, it is an article on education!

dpedu• 6 years ago

This is such a simple hack. It's basically equivalent to the classroom transparency overhead projectors of the past. You could 3d print a similar device with a USB webcam and a proper mirror for pennies. Is there a market for this?

bryanrasmussen• 6 years ago

Yes, there is a market for things that do this - it's the projector market, so if people don't have the money to enter the projector market they use hacks like this one - examples

https://hackaday.com/2014/03/13/make-an-hd-projector-for-nex... https://www.instructables.com/id/Convert-a-40-years-old-DIA-...

first couple of hits for me when googling "convert old olverhead projector"

So market wise maybe there is a hacky way that allows you to get a cheap reasonably efficient projector thaat would make these hacks irrelevant, without naturally pushing to solve the problems of the projector market and thus pushing the product to have a projector type price. I certainly wish I could think up something that fell in that niche.

srtjstjsj4• 6 years ago

The market is temporarily disturbed by COVID WFH. The regular market either doesn't there it because they have blackboards/whiteboards, or they are rich/corrupt and buy overpriced overengineered things like Prometheus instead.

analog31• 6 years ago

It solves two problems at once: Letting the document lay flat, and mirror-imaging the camera.

jasoneckert• 6 years ago

What I find the most striking about this hack is that by doing it, the teacher is indirectly modeling clever problem solving techniques to the class.

Tade0• 6 years ago

My friend is a teacher and uses an application that turns his phone into a webcam.

He puts the device on a shelf with the camera facing down.

supernova87a• 6 years ago

I wonder if a DVD versus a CD produces better or worse diffraction/distracting artifacts in the image? or maybe it doesn't even matter given the resolution of the camera.

monksy2• 6 years ago

Theres got to be tons of sellers/makers in shenzhen that are either laughing or dismayed over the lack of tooling for our teachers in response to this.

ivan_ah2• 6 years ago

Another option (although requires more tech) is to use the camera from a mobile phone connected to the computer via USB. Requires app + USB cable + "drivers" installed on the host computer.

My teacher friend recommended DroidCamX (paid) but the drivers are windows only so I wasn't able to use that.

I instead tested with Iriun https://iriun.com/ and it worked OK with my newer phone (the older phone I wanted to use had trouble with autofocus... though maybe that's because of the way I have it suspended from a desk lamp).

It lags a little, but overall usable.

tootie• 6 years ago

Can't you also just join the Zoom/Meet/Whatev from your phone?

ivan_ah2• 6 years ago

Yes for a live call that would probably be the easiest.

The USB camera use case is to send "table top" video input into OBS, mix with other sources, and record the lesson for offline async viewing (flipped classroom).

gibolt2• 6 years ago

Amazing how creative people can be when faced with little resources and an important problem. This is one of the few pieces of content that is truly able to wow me.

Now it needs to go viral for all the other teachers. Maybe a site will emerge from this where teachers can share best practices, and everyone can benefit from some of the creations.

saeranv3• 6 years ago

She's getting a surprisingly high-quality reflection from that CD. I would have thought a CD wouldn't have had enough specularity, or created too much distortion to achieve that kind of quality.

The only downside appears to be that you have to angle the CD, in order to reflect the keyboard plane into the webcam, which means the captured image can only be viewed at an angle.

It'd be nice to have some live, post-processing to fix some issues like this. You could apply a perspective transformation to rotate the image to a head-on view, and maybe increase the contrast between black and white.

CydeWeys11• 6 years ago

It does make you wonder why not just use a small mirror. It might be a little bit harder to suspend in place correctly depending on weight but it'll do the job perfectly.

kumarvvr• 6 years ago

A CD is readily available, dead cheap, unbreakable (if not actively trying to break it).

Making a mirror would be a far more involved process.

gwbas1c• 6 years ago

The hole in the CD is used to secure it.

FWIW, many CDs are also very good mirrors. I've also used commercial pressings without extensive paint to look at eclipses.

Balgair3• 6 years ago

The trick is that the CD/DVD acts as a first surface mirror.

I just tried it with a bit of regular mirror (second surface) taped to bits of an old lamp. It does not work well, as there are internal reflections and glare from the glass fronting. You get slight double images too.

First surface mirrors can be made by taking apart kaleidoscopes and using the mirrors in them. That or dissolving the protective backing to regular mirrors with acetone. You can buy them outright as well, but they tend to be more expensive (~$20 each).

A CD/DVD is much easier than the other options and I'd say that the hack is even easier than a regular mirror.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_surface_mirror

tzs4• 6 years ago

The only downside appears to be that you have to angle the CD, in order to reflect the keyboard plane into the webcam, which means the captured image can only be viewed at an angle

The angle doesn't look like it is farther away from head-on than you would get when looking at a piece of paper sitting on your desk, which is a pretty common thing to do. I think most people are so used to reading paper at that angle that they wouldn't even notice that it isn't head-on.

PretzelFisch• 6 years ago

In our district some teachers were trying to do this until my wife reminded them they can run webex on their cell phone... Sad the district spent a lot of time and money on owl webcams to follow the presenter but nothing to cover the basic class room ops.

logane• 6 years ago

You can use the same trick to make a touch screen for any laptop with a webcam! https://github.com/bijection/sistine

The mirror system isn't quite as macgyvered though :)

fma2• 6 years ago

I happened to have a HD Webcam from years ago. I plugged that into my wife's laptop, use the default windows Webcam software...And then share screen.

I rigged up a stand so she can slide papers in and out.

peterwwillis4• 6 years ago

This is what I think of when I think "innovation": a different perspective. Not lost in the weeds of details, but a thousand miles above them.

monksy2• 6 years ago

I was pointed to this by Naomi Wu:

This maybe something that local hacker spaces could pump out:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4588215

Karupan• 6 years ago

This is what real judaad [1] looks like! It blows my mind when people come up with such ingenious solutions, only partly because I’ve never been able to.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24459888

f2000• 6 years ago

My wife is a 2d grade teacher. She brought home her lumens ladybug that she used with her Promethean board in the classroom. However, the lag was terrible, her 2012 macbook pro just couldn't handle it. Our solution was to re-purpose an old ipad along with reflector teacher https://www.airsquirrels.com/reflector/teacher ($17.99). Yeah, just in case you're curious - my wife teaches for a SF Bay Area school district where I suppose they can afford lots of stuff except a refresh of eight year old laptops.

Cthulhu_5• 6 years ago

They could literally go to Apple's doorstep and ask for sponsorship; I'm sure Apple can use it in one of their saccharine marketing videos.

futhey• 6 years ago

There is a "Phone Periscope" I use, that you can buy on Amazon / eBay for a few dollars, that might be useful if you need something like this: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=phone+periscope

Some have a little magnet so it can be detached and re-attached quickly.

We use it to make a phone-based people counter. Recently found out that in China they're marketed as phone attachments to take pervy, upskirt photos of girls without getting caught.

killjoywashere• 6 years ago

Reminds of the "hot pocket" Dr. Gillingham's surgical team developed in Iraq for keeping air-evac'd patients warm: wrap patient in blanket, put blanket-burrito-patient in a body bag with a hole cut out for their face. Battlefield hypothermia cases went to 0 overnight.

https://www.wemjournal.org/article/S1080-6032(17)30097-2/pdf

pkphilip• 6 years ago

That's an absolutely brilliant hack! wow!

psankar• 6 years ago

https://twitter.com/yadav_monica/status/1292047281676382210 is another instance where a teacher from India used a smartphone and a refrigerator tray for sharing hand-written notes. I believe that this would give more clarity than the surface area of the CD.

mirekrusin• 6 years ago

Who said people don't use CD-ROMs?

brazzy• 6 years ago

I wonder how long it will take Apple to offer this as a product for $99 and come up with a clever way to make the makeshift version to stop working.

Not a common enough use case for them to bother, I guess. But if it were we all know they totally would.

ComodoHacker2• 6 years ago

Not Apple, but for accessory (esp. webcam) vendors virtual classes surge is definitely an opportunity.

jetru• 6 years ago

Literally gonna do this for "System Design" interviews

ComodoHacker2• 6 years ago

Now with it on HN front page you have to think up something different.

baby2• 6 years ago

That’s why I think the iPad pro has so much potential to replace laptops for a lot of people.

Cthulhu_5• 6 years ago

If only they were affordable. You can get a good enough laptop for $300, an ipad pro is thrice that, more if you need the keyboard / stand to go with it.

knlje• 6 years ago

I've been now teaching several remote math lessons with a standard iPad $329 and Apple Pencil $99. Basically I'm joining to a Teams meeting and sharing the entire screen, then writing stuff using the standard Notes application. Finally I share the note with the class by exporting it to the Teams application.

There is a built-in feature in Teams which allows me to launch quick improvised quizzes in the chat which I find nice. I'm also able to collect assignments via Teams and check/mark them in Word using Apple Pencil. The students take a picture using their own phone camera and add it to a docx-file which is then turned in using Teams.

jwr• 6 years ago

The basic iPad is $329. It is a modern fast computer that has everything built-in. The only things you need to add is a keyboard and/or a stand/case.

Apple hardware is no longer expensive these days — I mean, they will let you spend as much as you want and take your money, but their lineup starts quite low and provides excellent value for the money.

bashwizard• 6 years ago

Jesus christ. Just get a cheap wacom tablet.

jason0597• 6 years ago

How much money do you make?

How much money do you think teachers make?

chris-orgmenta• 6 years ago

This would come across as extremely tone deaf from teachers that are on low salaries, paying out of pocket already for student tools and consumables.

There are quite a few posts in this thread where 'check your privilege' applies.

nym3r0s• 6 years ago

While it is mind blowing how less we've invested in modernizing education, the biggest barrier I've seen in recent times is - educating the educators.

For reference, I helped set up my high school with a <insert-suite-for-education> for free and they were very happy as there were folks charging them to get it set up. But next biggest problem I saw was - teachers who have been using a blackboard all their life trying to do their best to teach with a powerpoint presentation.

Problem is exacerbated when you throw in more variables like - flaky internet connection, inconsistencies in UI all across, hardware failures, zoombombing and a certain lack of features. Now do this in India - where the student:teacher ratio is absolutely crazy.

Really goes to show how we should get the fundamentals right.

HumblyTossed2• 6 years ago

Really goes to show how we should get the fundamentals right.

We did for a long time then everyone said that computers had to be used.

ajuc• 6 years ago

You can also connect your phone to your laptop through usb or wifi and use it as a camera positioning it however you like.

nicexe• 6 years ago

Sure, this works, but a cheap USB webcam would have been a far better solution than writing on top of your keyboard

ivvve• 6 years ago

What makes it a better solution? Albeit a bit "life hack"-y, this is something that requires no technical skill or support, and is easily assembled from household items, so very little outlay.

I don't think I'd concede that webcams are a better solution, when thinking as an underfunded body such as a school district who may have to provide support for potentially thousands of these webcams to work for all their teachers.

Furthermore, I don't think this is something that we should hold the individual teacher responsible for: teaching is already a full time job, and workers should not have to buy their own equipment to do their job with, something that already happens too much in that field.

I did also think the writing on the keyboard might prove problematic, but also the teacher could theoretically remove the notepad and place it back if they wished. It's a relatively "open" technique.

mft_• 6 years ago

...plus a totally new structure to suspend the webcam the correct distance above the desk. Plus the hassle of switching video feeds constantly.

Reminds me a little of this: https://youtu.be/FmMzlehzU8c

(You’re off buying extruded aluminium rods to make the structure, while she’s... teaching her class.)

bronzecarnage• 6 years ago

This is classic jugaad. Well done, and to great effect!

einpoklum• 6 years ago

This is quite impressive, but - to nitpick a bit - doesn't this setup get messed up by the keyboard being pressed due to pressure on the writing pad, and the focus going to some other window, or menu, or something?

kettleweek• 6 years ago

This is similar to the solution I found for showing hands and face in a piano lesson. I spent a long time trying to get two cameras working. First by composing the video streams with ffmpeg or gstreamer and then by screen sharing a application which showed a second video. But in all cases the synchronisation was really bad.

Then I realised a mirror composes two images really well :)

Later I used transparent perspex with lighting (peppers ghost) as the mirror so the laptop screen on the piano is visible.

It is described here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4Qp8iHre9o&t=1s

xixixao• 6 years ago

Well done! (both on the setup and the instructional video)

steverb2• 6 years ago

This is super useful. I have a daughter who is a piano performance major and I spent ages getting a working two camera set up for her. I wish I had seen this then (or better thought of it myself).

I expect her university will end up going fully remote again next semester, so we will no doubt be putting this to use.

bjarneh• 6 years ago

A pencil (a pen should also work fine)

That's a detailed explanation :-)

nix23• 6 years ago

Presented by Disney and Apple ;)

But from where do they have those round mirrors i ask? What is it?

ChrisMarshallNY• 6 years ago

I like the hack. Kudos to that teacher.

Reminds me of the “space pen” urban myth.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-n...

dade_• 6 years ago

Cool, but they could have just spent less money on a Windows laptop with a stylus and touch screen. I use my stylus extensively at work, but many employers still have their users on machines without them. Such a shame.

I don’t understand why Apple keeps holding back the Mac platform, but I finally had to give up. I love my iPad for what it is great at, but gave up on Mac eight years ago. This reminds me of the black and white Mac Classics with tiny screens in school, when everyone had colour PCs that cost less.

phreack• 6 years ago

I applaud the inventive of being able to solve a problem with the tools and knowledge at hand but I must say it hit me like a blow to see that one key component to a low tech hack was a MacBook, one of the most expensive laptops out there.

My teachers all have laptops with cameras that don't reach even half of that kind of crispness of image sadly.

eddhead• 6 years ago

She should have just got a Surface device, or a million other laptop SKUs with pen support that are cheaper than the MacBook she's using.

dddbbb• 6 years ago

That model Macbook is 4-8 years old. This is a pretty useless and condescending comment.

amai• 6 years ago

Better wait until Apple Mirror is available which does the same, but in a beautiful aluminium finish and just costs $99.

Teacher's low-tech laptop hack to display handwritten notes for online class

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