path: root/2023/captions/emacsconf-2023-uni--authoring-and-presenting-university-courses-with-emacs-and-a-full-libre-software-stack--james-howell--main.vtt

WEBVTT captioned by James Howell, checked by sachac

NOTE Introduction

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Hello everyone. I'm James Howell.

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I teach biochemistry and

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molecular biology at Penn State University.

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I'm going to talk today

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about using Emacs to make all of

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the materials for presenting

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course meetings in my courses.

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Everything that you're going to see today is

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what I've made using

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the methods that I'm going to describe.

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The main point is that you can take

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an Org document and

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with a single Emacs document,

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make both a pretty text document

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that a student can have

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on the desk and take notes on.

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And also, I hope,

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fairly useful and attractive slides

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like the ones that I'm presenting right now.

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Both of these

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from a single source document.

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Okay. If you'd like

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to see the handout that goes along with this,

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you can download it

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at the [Sourcehut] repository where

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I've put— everything's here.

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So if you'd like to go look at it,

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you can follow with the handout.

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So I promised to talk about

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both authoring and presenting.

NOTE Presenting

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And first I'm going to talk about presenting.

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I'm not the only one who does this.

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You might have seen System Crafters [David Wilson]

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or Prot's [Protesilaos Stavrou's] channel or

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Mike Zemansky's channel on Youtube.

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(Prot actually is going to be presenting tomorrow.)

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Maybe you've seen this

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chemical engineer at Carnegie Mellon,

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John Kitchin or Eric Fraga

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or Olivier Berger all have made

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blog posts about using Org mode

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to produce course materials.

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This pair Ro and Namkoon

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actually published a peer reviewed paper.

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There's prior art here

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that I'd like to acknowledge.

NOTE Hardware

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Let me talk about my practices:

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First, the hardware.

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This is the hardware that I'm using to

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record this recording at the very moment,

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but also I carry these

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into every course meeting.

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I've done this for quite a while,

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this entire semester,

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and a few previous semesters

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where everything fits in a backpack.

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I do every meeting with this tablet—

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it's a Microsoft Surface that I put

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a Linux distribution on—and this laptop.

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I've got a bag full of

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dongles and connectors and so forth.

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It all fits in a backpack.

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This is very mobile.

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I can set it up and tear it down

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before and after every class

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with just a couple minutes.

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There's the laptop and the

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tablet with a stylus.

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Where's my stylus?

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So that I can draw...

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... which is very useful.

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Obviously, I need a camera.

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Today, I'm using a desk mic,

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but when I'm remote,

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I use a lapel mic.

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and a video converter,

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and I'll show you why that's important.

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And then all of the ancillary equipment.

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One thing that's nice about using

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a completely free software stack is

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that it tends to run

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on underpowered hardware,

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and none of the software cost anything.

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I could have spent much less than this

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on a used computer and

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a used tablet. And everything else,

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these are high estimates.

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I spent way less than

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$1,000 for all of this equipment.

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And it's my equipment,

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so I have hardware

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and software control over it,

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Which is nice.

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If you have an attitude of upcycling and building,

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and [if] this is a hobby anyway,

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this is an easy way—

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what I'm saying is—

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the entry into using these things,

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there's certainly a very low cost barrier.

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Because the hardware is so weak,

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I have the tablet for doing tablet stuff,

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and then I use the laptop to

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do all of the streaming and recording.

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I take the video output

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of the tablet and convert it to

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USB input into the laptop.

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Just to give you a diagram here,

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there's a laptop and there's a tablet.

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The tablet has a stylus.

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They both run GNU/Linux distributions.

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You've got a webcam that

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goes into the laptop.

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You've got video output

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from the tablet that goes into the laptop.

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There's a microphone that

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goes into the laptop,

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and then audio and video come out of

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the laptop and go into

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some AV system or another.

NOTE Example setup

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Okay. This was Wednesday,

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teaching microbiology.

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There's the tablet, there's the laptop.

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There's the external screen

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in the podium here you can

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plug into the AV system.

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There it is. From where I stand,

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this is what the screen looks like.

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This is what students are seeing,

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on the live stream

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and later on the recording.

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And students in the room

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can see this as well.

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So you notice this is kind of meta,

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but the camera and

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the contents of the screen are

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there when I wander around,

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and when I stand in front of the screen,

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the students who aren't in the room can

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still see what I'm pointing to on the screen.

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Nobody gets left out.

NOTE Presentation software: flexibility in function

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Let's talk about

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the software that I use.

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There's a lot of different things that

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I want to be able to show.

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And so I need a few different

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software packages— besides Emacs.

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For drawing on the tablet, I use

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(I don't know quite how this is pronounced:

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I think it's) Xournal++

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I use the web quite a bit,

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especially if I want to just

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spontaneously look something up.

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Often I use video,

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especially molecular animations.

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And that's incredibly powerful.

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And then now and again, I want to look at text.

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Especially in

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the English course that I teach,

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there's quite a bit of text.

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I'll use Emacs for that.

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The video compositor, the thing that

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puts this video and me in the green screen.

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and all of this stuff together, is called

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OBS Studio—and that also does recording.

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It's ALMOST a completely free software stack.

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I use Zoom to do

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the streaming and video

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conferencing because all of

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the students are forced to use it for

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their other classes and

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I've gone along with it.

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But a good alternative is

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Jitsi Meet. There are others.

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Okay. Again, here's

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the hardware setup. On the tablet,

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I'm running Xournal++. On the laptop,

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I've got Firefox and VLC, and Emacs.

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OBS is compositing that together.

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And I use Zoom, but you could use Jitsi.

NOTE Live demonstration

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All right, let's

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demonstrate this live. Here we go.

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Here goes, nothing. The drawing program

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is really good because I can draw

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with the stylus on a tablet.

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It's a remarkable thing—

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I teach in these big lecture halls,

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and I guess they want them to be fancy?

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And so they don't have blackboards and

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whiteboards! If I want to be able to draw,

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if I want to do anything approaching analog,

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it has to be with this software!

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In this presentation, I

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don't have very many diagrams,

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but in my courses, most of

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the slides are complicated diagrams.

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Being able to annotate them

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is really important.

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This is why I don't use Emacs for

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presenting these kinds of documents,

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because I want to be able

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to mark them up visually.

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I can show you what that looks like.

NOTE OBS

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By the way, here's how OBS works:

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I can go from different "scenes"

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So I can just do just me,

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or I can show you the slides,

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or I can show you what I see on the tablet.

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On the tablet, I can go

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through all of the— notice here,

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I'm scrolling through all

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of the different slides.

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I've got all kinds of different markup tools,

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and tools for controlling

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zoom and what page I'm on,

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but you don't have to see that.

NOTE Firefox

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Okay. Firefox, boy, I do a lot of this.

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All of the quizzes,

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quizzes and exams in my courses

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are online on this

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web platform called Canvas,

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which is good enough.

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It's based on a GPL3 package,

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but this one is proprietary for Penn State.

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Notice that there's a quiz

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every day, and this quiz,

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every quiz has a recording from

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that day and you notice

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there's a picture of me teaching,

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pointing to the slides.

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There's the slides themselves.

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I use OBS to composite in

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the Zoom chat because I teach this hybrid.

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There's people in the room

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and there's people at

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other campuses who are in this course.

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Having the Zoom chat in

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the live feed is very useful.

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Then the quiz—

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at the next class meeting,

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we'll go through this quiz.

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Here's some experimental data

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and here's a question where they're

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supposed to interpret these data.

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We can in class together,

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we can review those.

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That's why Firefox is useful.

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Being able to inhabit,

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being able to inhabit

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figures like this is incredibly powerful.

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This is the silver lining of being

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forced to teach online during the pandemic,

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because I couldn't do

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this before I had a green screen.

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But even more powerful than this—

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For years, I showed students

00:10:10.820 --> 00:10:12.339
this figure by standing in front

00:10:12.340 --> 00:10:13.699
of it or by having a

00:10:13.700 --> 00:10:15.239
projector screen above me.

00:10:15.240 --> 00:10:18.459
And I said, "This is the B form of DNA."

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"This is the most common form of DNA."

00:10:20.380 --> 00:10:22.579
"You see here that there's this minor groove."

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"And then this feature

00:10:23.420 --> 00:10:24.419
is called the major groove."

00:10:24.420 --> 00:10:26.059
And students couldn't see it.

NOTE Animation

00:10:26.060 --> 00:10:29.439
But if you animate it—

00:10:29.440 --> 00:10:30.279
if you just have it

00:10:30.280 --> 00:10:33.319
move, the apparent movement,

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It's not really movement,

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it's apparent movement.

00:10:35.380 --> 00:10:37.819
And it tricks your visual cortex into

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adding three dimensional structure to this.

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You can see this feature is

00:10:42.580 --> 00:10:45.339
the major groove and that feature

00:10:45.340 --> 00:10:47.219
is the minor groove. And a static

00:10:47.220 --> 00:10:48.319
image just can't provide

00:10:48.320 --> 00:10:51.399
that understanding, while moving image can.

NOTE Emacs

00:10:55.790 --> 00:10:58.179
I use Emacs to look at text.

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Where's Emacs? Here's Emacs! We read

00:11:02.520 --> 00:11:04.279
Vonnegut in this English class that I

00:11:04.280 --> 00:11:07.759
teach and I'm going to tab over to Emacs.

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It's nice to be able

00:11:09.860 --> 00:11:12.419
to have text jump

00:11:12.420 --> 00:11:14.159
around and be dynamic, right?

00:11:14.160 --> 00:11:16.859
If you, if you want to look

00:11:16.860 --> 00:11:18.039
at this passage and I'll

00:11:18.040 --> 00:11:19.259
have somebody read it aloud.

00:11:19.260 --> 00:11:20.819
And then we talk about why he chose

00:11:20.820 --> 00:11:22.499
this word and why he chose that word,

00:11:22.500 --> 00:11:25.179
and the cadence, and the alliteration.

00:11:25.180 --> 00:11:30.839
Then we can go to another particular excerpt

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and pick that apart on the screen together.

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That would be difficult to do with

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other software that would be very tedious

00:11:36.820 --> 00:11:39.399
to do on the chalkboard.

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So Emacs is really good for that sort of thing.

NOTE Making slides and handouts with Org Mode

00:11:42.260 --> 00:11:45.379
Mostly what I use Emacs for is not to

00:11:45.380 --> 00:11:50.339
present but to make slides and handouts.

00:11:50.340 --> 00:11:52.359
Okay. Again, the thing that I want to

00:11:52.360 --> 00:11:54.219
stress is that the slides

00:11:54.220 --> 00:11:56.739
and the handouts can be produced from

00:11:56.740 --> 00:12:01.179
a single Org mode document.

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This entire presentation

00:12:04.060 --> 00:12:05.699
was assembled in Emacs.

00:12:05.700 --> 00:12:07.939
I'll show you how I did that.

00:12:08.420 --> 00:12:11.619
I think everybody

00:12:11.620 --> 00:12:13.159
probably knows what Org mode is.

00:12:13.160 --> 00:12:14.639
But for our purposes, it's a way

00:12:14.640 --> 00:12:16.119
to write documents in plain text.

00:12:16.120 --> 00:12:19.839
That's very important because one of

00:12:19.840 --> 00:12:22.019
the biggest advantages of this is

00:12:22.020 --> 00:12:24.739
being able to do version control.

00:12:24.740 --> 00:12:27.779
I don't have Powerpoint decks

00:12:27.780 --> 00:12:29.359
everywhere with slides that

00:12:29.360 --> 00:12:31.239
there's no way to keep track of them.

00:12:31.240 --> 00:12:32.459
Having these be plain text

00:12:32.460 --> 00:12:33.579
means that I can just put them in

00:12:33.580 --> 00:12:36.139
a git repository.

00:12:36.140 --> 00:12:37.899
Very clean and human readable markup

00:12:37.900 --> 00:12:41.159
including handling tables

00:12:41.160 --> 00:12:43.339
which is just incredibly powerful.

00:12:43.340 --> 00:12:45.459
You can manage projects and tasks.

00:12:45.460 --> 00:12:47.299
But the fact that it's an outline

00:12:47.300 --> 00:12:48.979
that you can produce a document that's

00:12:48.980 --> 00:12:51.279
hierarchical and fold and

00:12:51.280 --> 00:12:52.979
reveal different parts of it.

00:12:52.980 --> 00:12:57.119
But to produce a book length lectures for

00:12:57.120 --> 00:12:58.919
an entire semester and use

00:12:58.920 --> 00:13:01.399
those to produce both slides and handouts,

00:13:01.400 --> 00:13:03.179
that's very powerful,

00:13:03.180 --> 00:13:04.999
at least for my brain. To be able to

00:13:05.000 --> 00:13:06.779
put it all together and have it be

00:13:06.780 --> 00:13:08.399
discursive rather

00:13:08.400 --> 00:13:09.919
than having to be graphical.

00:13:09.920 --> 00:13:11.879
You can export to

00:13:11.880 --> 00:13:15.059
a million different formats including

00:13:15.060 --> 00:13:16.999
PDF documents like the handouts as

00:13:17.000 --> 00:13:22.679
LaTeX, and slides like these through Beamer export.

NOTE Pedagogy first

00:13:22.680 --> 00:13:24.919
The approach is to think

00:13:24.920 --> 00:13:26.899
about pedagogy rather than thinking

00:13:26.900 --> 00:13:28.279
about software or thinking

00:13:28.280 --> 00:13:30.999
about graphic design.

00:13:31.000 --> 00:13:32.599
To think about how can

00:13:32.600 --> 00:13:34.379
I make the best argument?

00:13:34.380 --> 00:13:35.979
How can I make the best,

00:13:35.980 --> 00:13:40.879
the most effective sequence of ideas?

00:13:40.880 --> 00:13:44.999
All I've done is make a few tweaks to

00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:47.979
the export backends for LaTeX and

00:13:47.980 --> 00:13:49.979
Beamer to customize them

00:13:49.980 --> 00:13:51.499
for my particular needs.

00:13:51.500 --> 00:13:54.599
And I'll show you what I've done.

00:13:54.600 --> 00:13:58.059
You've seen this already. I'll put

00:13:58.060 --> 00:14:00.899
one idea in big text on the screen.

00:14:00.900 --> 00:14:04.619
I find it to be effective to

00:14:04.620 --> 00:14:09.119
make a single idea explicit at one time.

00:14:09.120 --> 00:14:12.259
Now, some concepts can

00:14:12.260 --> 00:14:14.799
be explained with words or text,

00:14:14.800 --> 00:14:20.259
but many ideas are best just illustrated.

00:14:20.260 --> 00:14:22.539
In contrast, we've

00:14:22.540 --> 00:14:23.979
all used Powerpoint, right?

00:14:23.980 --> 00:14:25.699
And Edward Tufte has taught us

00:14:25.700 --> 00:14:27.479
about how Powerpoint is so

00:14:27.480 --> 00:14:29.239
terrible from a cognitive point of

00:14:29.240 --> 00:14:31.799
view and from a communications point of view.

00:14:31.800 --> 00:14:35.398
So using Org mode is much better.

00:14:35.400 --> 00:14:36.759
How is it better?

00:14:36.760 --> 00:14:41.479
Well, Tufte also tells us that

00:14:42.040 --> 00:14:49.049
any oral presentation that is substantive at all

00:14:49.050 --> 00:14:52.629
has to have some physical handout

00:14:52.630 --> 00:14:55.709
that the audience can use to take notes on.

00:14:55.710 --> 00:14:58.749
Slides are terrible handouts.

00:14:59.030 --> 00:15:02.129
And notes are usually terrible slides.

00:15:02.130 --> 00:15:03.689
Having one document where you

00:15:03.690 --> 00:15:05.849
can produce both and have them be,

00:15:05.850 --> 00:15:08.409
have the same organization,

00:15:08.410 --> 00:15:10.349
but different structures and

00:15:10.350 --> 00:15:14.749
different visual organization is

00:15:14.750 --> 00:15:16.609
something that I wanted

00:15:16.610 --> 00:15:18.629
for a long time and I can only do it

00:15:18.630 --> 00:15:20.019
with Emacs.

00:15:20.020 --> 00:15:21.409
Being able

00:15:21.410 --> 00:15:22.729
also for my brain to

00:15:22.730 --> 00:15:25.309
separate the work of writing and developing

00:15:25.310 --> 00:15:28.469
ideas and developing explanations

00:15:28.470 --> 00:15:30.049
and developing arguments

00:15:30.050 --> 00:15:31.429
and scaffolding them.

00:15:31.430 --> 00:15:33.689
That's jargon in pedagogy

00:15:33.690 --> 00:15:36.889
for bringing the student along.

00:15:36.890 --> 00:15:41.349
Separate that work from wrangling slides.

00:15:41.350 --> 00:15:44.529
That's super helpful for me.

00:15:44.530 --> 00:15:46.709
Again, you have

00:15:46.710 --> 00:15:48.229
an Org document that makes

00:15:48.230 --> 00:15:51.369
both the handouts and the slides.

00:15:51.370 --> 00:15:53.449
What's beautiful about it is

00:15:53.450 --> 00:15:54.649
that everything is an outline.

00:15:54.650 --> 00:15:56.429
And again, it's very discursive.

00:15:56.430 --> 00:15:59.109
Here's Tufte's famous poster where he's making

00:15:59.110 --> 00:16:02.009
fun of the psychology of Powerpoint.

00:16:02.010 --> 00:16:05.749
I don't know about you, but I have the kind of brain

00:16:05.750 --> 00:16:07.609
and I'm in the kind of job

00:16:07.610 --> 00:16:09.909
and I'm at the age where I don't have extra

00:16:09.910 --> 00:16:12.049
cognitive function! You know?

00:16:12.050 --> 00:16:15.729
So streamlining this workflow

00:16:15.730 --> 00:16:17.789
has been really helpful.

NOTE org-teach

00:16:17.790 --> 00:16:19.309
All right, so let me show

00:16:19.310 --> 00:16:21.649
you what I've developed.

00:16:21.650 --> 00:16:24.489
Let's look at the Org doc.

00:16:24.490 --> 00:16:25.829
Okay. So what you see is you have

00:16:25.830 --> 00:16:30.769
a typical Org mode buffer.

00:16:30.770 --> 00:16:32.849
There's two headings here.

00:16:32.850 --> 00:16:35.529
One of them is stuff that I've deleted and

00:16:35.530 --> 00:16:39.269
the other is the talk.

00:16:39.270 --> 00:16:43.109
And so all of these subheadings have

00:16:43.110 --> 00:16:46.389
various things underneath including

00:16:46.390 --> 00:16:48.969
these macros that I wrote like `include-slide`,

00:16:48.970 --> 00:16:51.229
`impact-slide`, `subsection-slide`,

00:16:51.230 --> 00:16:54.909
et cetera, and then a bunch of stuff.

00:16:54.950 --> 00:16:59.309
Then I've got this include

00:16:59.310 --> 00:17:01.629
file that just has

00:17:01.630 --> 00:17:03.289
the macros that I've written.

00:17:03.290 --> 00:17:05.449
You can look at this on the repo.

00:17:05.450 --> 00:17:06.289
I'm not going to take

00:17:06.290 --> 00:17:07.569
the time to walk through it and

00:17:07.570 --> 00:17:10.369
explain what all the LaTeX means.

00:17:10.370 --> 00:17:16.509
But the upshot is

00:17:16.510 --> 00:17:20.549
that by including that file

00:17:20.550 --> 00:17:22.429
that has all the macro definitions,

00:17:22.430 --> 00:17:25.649
you get things like this macro pause

00:17:25.650 --> 00:17:27.689
or newline or whitespace-break,

00:17:27.690 --> 00:17:30.809
which just allow—

00:17:30.810 --> 00:17:33.009
pause splits a slide into two frames,

00:17:33.010 --> 00:17:34.569
so you can get these overlays,

00:17:34.570 --> 00:17:36.309
so you can go through paragraphs one by one.

00:17:36.310 --> 00:17:38.629
These just put

00:17:38.630 --> 00:17:42.649
white space in.

00:17:44.650 --> 00:17:47.109
Text-slides: This thing here, this title

00:17:47.110 --> 00:17:49.169
is level three heading.

00:17:49.170 --> 00:17:50.189
Figure-slides:

00:17:50.190 --> 00:17:52.049
the same thing are level three headings.

00:17:52.050 --> 00:17:54.009
One of the most powerful things

00:17:54.010 --> 00:17:56.229
is that I can take other files,

00:17:56.230 --> 00:18:00.149
I can take other Org files that have level

00:18:00.150 --> 00:18:02.789
three headings that are slides and those can

00:18:02.790 --> 00:18:06.209
be in some other repository.

00:18:06.210 --> 00:18:08.509
I only need to have one version of

00:18:08.510 --> 00:18:09.909
that slide that I

00:18:09.910 --> 00:18:12.749
can use in multiple courses.

00:18:13.230 --> 00:18:17.109
Just that functionality is

00:18:17.110 --> 00:18:19.909
incredibly helpful for keeping

00:18:19.910 --> 00:18:22.809
track of work from a few years ago.

00:18:22.810 --> 00:18:24.269
All of these I'm going to

00:18:24.270 --> 00:18:25.929
explain in the next few slides.

00:18:25.930 --> 00:18:27.709
The section slides

00:18:27.710 --> 00:18:29.909
correspond to course modules.

00:18:29.910 --> 00:18:31.129
Each of these is going to

00:18:31.130 --> 00:18:32.549
be a few weeks of a course.

00:18:32.550 --> 00:18:34.629
This is a major division of a course.

00:18:34.630 --> 00:18:36.909
I have some macros so that I can decorate

00:18:36.910 --> 00:18:41.389
this with relevant information.

00:18:41.390 --> 00:18:43.469
Then for every subsection,

00:18:43.470 --> 00:18:45.569
level two headline, that

00:18:45.570 --> 00:18:46.729
corresponds to a major

00:18:46.730 --> 00:18:48.589
course topic in the module.

00:18:48.590 --> 00:18:50.209
Then text slides, again,

00:18:50.210 --> 00:18:52.849
level three headlines become

00:18:52.850 --> 00:18:53.969
titles for the slide,

00:18:53.970 --> 00:18:58.859
and level four headlines become text elements.

00:18:58.900 --> 00:19:01.679
Most of my slides look like this.

00:19:01.680 --> 00:19:03.139
They're figures.

00:19:03.140 --> 00:19:05.859
Here's the glycolytic pathway.

00:19:06.020 --> 00:19:09.979
Level three gives you the title.

00:19:11.420 --> 00:19:14.279
It's missing here actually,

00:19:14.280 --> 00:19:16.719
but there's a way you can put in captions.

00:19:16.720 --> 00:19:18.959
This line here just tells

00:19:18.960 --> 00:19:21.039
the LaTeX export backend

00:19:21.040 --> 00:19:24.219
how big you want it and stuff like that.

00:19:24.220 --> 00:19:29.139
Impact slides, they have to go under H1 or H2.

00:19:29.140 --> 00:19:32.179
And they just give you one of these text slides.

00:19:32.450 --> 00:19:35.649
For an entire slide being an image,

00:19:35.650 --> 00:19:38.249
you can use this image-slide macro.

NOTE Blank slides

00:19:38.330 --> 00:19:41.129
I often put in blank slides to

00:19:41.130 --> 00:19:43.269
remind myself that this is a time to stop.

00:19:43.270 --> 00:19:44.789
Often there's something for me to

00:19:44.790 --> 00:19:47.369
draw here with the stylus.

NOTE Animations

00:19:50.050 --> 00:19:53.149
I often use— it used to be Powerpoint,

00:19:53.150 --> 00:19:56.069
now I use LibreOffice Impress—to make

00:19:56.070 --> 00:19:58.309
multi slide animations like

00:19:58.310 --> 00:20:01.309
the sphere and the donut and the GI tract.

00:20:01.310 --> 00:20:03.249
And this hardware thing

00:20:03.250 --> 00:20:05.269
that I did for you today,

00:20:05.270 --> 00:20:07.949
I export those animations as PDFs.

00:20:07.950 --> 00:20:14.469
Then I can just slurp them up into the slides.

00:20:14.470 --> 00:20:16.669
Just into the slides, not into

00:20:16.670 --> 00:20:19.269
the handouts with this macro.

NOTE Conclusion

00:20:19.270 --> 00:20:21.489
I hope that you find this useful.

00:20:21.490 --> 00:20:22.449
I hope you share it with

00:20:22.450 --> 00:20:24.089
other educators that you know.

00:20:24.090 --> 00:20:27.149
Here is the sourcehut repo,

00:20:27.150 --> 00:20:29.069
here's how to get in touch with me.

00:20:29.070 --> 00:20:32.569
I look forward to addressing your questions.

00:20:32.690 --> 00:20:34.989
I want to say thank you

00:20:34.990 --> 00:20:36.609
to Sacha [Chua] and the organizers,

00:20:36.610 --> 00:20:38.449
and to everyone who made this possible and

00:20:38.450 --> 00:20:40.689
to all of you in the community.

00:20:40.690 --> 00:20:42.769
Because as we all know,

00:20:42.770 --> 00:20:47.429
that that's what makes Emacs such a strong

00:20:47.430 --> 00:20:50.089
and powerful package is

00:20:50.090 --> 00:20:51.329
all of the people behind it.

00:20:51.330 --> 00:20:53.169
Thanks everybody.