Finally thank God the semester is over. I am grateful to have a job during this pandemic, of course, but it was rife with uncertainty, doubt, stress, fear and anxiety. On the positive side, we showed adaptability, resilience, compassion, cooperation, communication, empathy, community, innovation and growth. So now looking at the lists of these feels, I can see that there were a great deal of positives even though the negatives sometimes overshadowed on a moment-to-moment basis.
Here are the items that I bought:
- Wireless earbuds $36
- Chest mount $20
- Ring light $24
- Webcam with microphone $30
- Joby tripod (large) $51
- Joby tripod (small) $30
Here are the items in the "Lecture Capture Kit" provided by my university:
I prefer the webcam that I got myself. It does have a kind of fish-eye effect but as long as your head is in the center of the field of view, I think it does a good job. I also started to use the Zoom filter because the HD webcam showed a few more imperfections than I wanted. The webcam with autofocus, which I used exclusively at school in my office, which does have a busy background I'll admit, seemed to have trouble keeping my face in focus. It was constantly shifting to in-or-out of focus, which I would find distracting as a viewer.
I only used the USB microphone a few times, but it definitely made me want to start up a podcast. I need to add it to my technology audio test prior to starting next semester to decide what I want to use going forward. There is something to be said for a microphone that picks up EVERYTHING versus a microphone that cancels background noise. Sometimes, for example, if you have a baby crying in the background, you would rather subtract that out instead of amplifying everything.
I was able to use the document camera once for a lecture about COVID treatments. The content I covered was so new (to me) and I ended up drawing a lot of molecular structures with crayons and annotating the drawings with ink pen. I don't know if the students got anything out of that class meeting because I didn't make it very interactive, but at least I tried to cover some current events.
The wireless earbuds are so-so. I love using them when I'm with my son because he has a tendency to grab any cords and these keep cords out of his reach. But they do tend to fall out. I probably should have bought a pair that went over the ears. I like their battery life and they had good audio quality but they didn't reliably communicate with my phone and sometimes at work I would plug in the regular earbuds with a cord that came with our phones. The audio quality was similar and superior to the audio from my webcam.
The chest harness was something I used, but as I suspected it jiggled around quite a bit. I did use it when I was filming something right in front of my body, like sample preparation, but more often I used the tripods. That way the camera was stable and was better able to focus on whatever was going on. The forward-facing camera on my Samsung Galaxy S9 was really great for showing objects that were close up and also wider shots like an entire instrument. It was also really good at light-correcting when pointed at a computer screen. Overall my phone was a big help for filming lab, but I probably could have done without the chest harness. Also, when I tried to feed my son during lab breaks, he would get really distracted by the chest harness and forget to eat. It was frustrating.
The ring light I bought is fantastic. I love it. It is great for lighting my face and also I can point it at a document beside my computer. I'm OK with the "LumeCube" provided by my university, it wasn't terrible or awesome. It was pretty freaking expensive. Maybe I'll go back and watch the video of myself where I used it. It was broadcast from my office at CSUN where the lights turn off if I sit still too long. So I was talking about the stars, using my cool huge microphone, and the LumeCube. I felt like a radio host on Coast to Coast.
