The fiery horse with the speed of light, the cloud of dust, and a hearty high old silver, the lone ranger. With his faithful Indian companion, Tonto, the daring and resourceful masked rider of the planes led the fight for law and order in the early western United States. Nowhere in the pages of history can one find a greater champion of justice. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear. From out of the past come the thundering hoofbeats of the great horse Silver, the lone ranger rides again. Fides on the cluster of log cabins in the little settlement, but the pioneers had not been caught unprepared. Keep fire! Pour it out of them! We'll show them critters! Here's another gun, Jim! Keep that kids down below the window! The settlers have taken refuge in the sturdiest of their buildings. Men fire through narrow slits in the logs, while the women and children reloaded weapons and passed them to the marksmen. The Indians had closed in and had been driven back. Again they tried to storm the buildings to get within range of fire arrows, and again they'd been driven back. Hey, boys! Look! No! Hold your fire! We shout them Redskins! Where did that kill us? Was anyone killed? I don't think so, Jim. You're the man with wounded son, but I don't think anyone's hurt serious. Pete's hurt the worst. He's got an error cleaned through the shoulder. Where's Jean? Is she all right? Right over there, Jim. She's just finishing a bandage on Pete's shoulder. Jean, are you all right? Yes, Jim. Gosh, that was an error escape.  I guess we showed them we could take care of ourselves, Fred. Yeah, but they're likely to come back. Maybe the next time they'll take us by surprise. I say we ought to go after them and whip them for keeps. No, no, Fred. Let well enough alone. I think Fred's right. I think Fred's right. What do you say, Jim? Well, uh, maybe you'll ride. Boys, we're riding after those Redskins. Jim, what are you talking about?  But I don't want you to. It'll be a lot different if you're trying to fight those Indians out in the open. Better listen to what your wife says, son. Those Redskins have got to be licked, I tell you. Of course, if you don't want to do your part, Jim, it's all right with us.  Fred Munson, it's not a case of doing his part. I think Jim's already done his part and sold the rest of you. It's one thing to defend the settlement, but it's quite different to go out and chase those Indians. Maybe we should let Jim's wife be boss of the settlement from now on, huh, boys? That'll do, Fred. No more of that talk. Look out the window. Hey, look out there. Here comes the horseman. Let me get a shot at him. Hold on, Fred. It's not a Redskins. Looks like he's riding up this way with some sort of message. Or maybe he's been chased. He's riding awfully fast. Just look at that horse traveling. Gosh, what a horse! Is that a mask in his face? It sure is. He must be an outlaw. I'll drill the critter. Put that gun down, Fred. Beautiful horse. What about it, Jim? Should I unbar the door? Yeah, we'll see what he wants. I don't believe in taking chances with strangers. He's not likely to start trouble in here. He's a dozen men with guns. Open the door, Hank. Right. Walking right up as if he belonged here. You can come in, mister, but keep your hands shoulder high. Get in and worry about my hands. What does that mask mean, mister? Are you dogs in the law? Oh. And why do you wear a mask? And what do you want here? For many of you hurt by the Indians? We got a few. Maybe you didn't know it, but you certainly invited that attack. What do you mean, we invited it? One of you settlers caused that attack. A short, heavy man with a black beard. Do you mean Fred Munson? You there. You answer that description. Me? What are you talking about? Are that Fred caused the attack? You've been prospecting on the east slope of Eagle Mountain. Well? You camped in a valley about halfway up. The Indians call it the Valley of the Great Spirit. That's all? There's a large rock balanced just above the entrance to the valley. Recollected. What of it? How long has this settlement been here? We come here eight months ago. Why? Eight months, and perhaps you're not to blame. Maybe you didn't realize that that valley has always been sacred to the Red Men. Then the rock at its entrance represents the Great Spirit. It's sacrilege for an Indian to set foot in that valley. It's worse for a white man to do so. Are you trying to tell us a way to stay out of that valley? Yes. That's what prompted this attack. They raided us because I made camp in a valley that don't even belong to them? May sound unreasonable to you, but it wouldn't if you understood Indians. You want to know something, stranger? Well?   I came here merely to help you. After I'd been told by a friend what the Indians were going to do. Now you know the situation. What you do is your own responsibility. Yeah?  Perhaps I have wasted my time. Wait, stranger! Let him go! Fred! Why did you have to talk to him like that? That man simply wanted to help us. Help us nothing.  Find thunder if I'd have been him.  Come on. So I was shooting off my mouth, was I? All right, folks, I'll tell you something. I'll tell you why he don't want me prospecting in that valley. There's gold in that valley. Cool. Honest. Did you find gold there, Fred? You better didn't. What's there got to do with a masked man's warning? He wants that gold for himself. Taking us for green horns, he gave us that story about Indians, figuring we'd swallow it. Indians. Ha! I'm betting there wasn't a word of truth in what he said. Hey, maybe Fred's right. He was masked. He must have been a crook. And if there's gold in that valley and he knows about it, he'd want to keep us out. But why did the Indians attack? Maybe they attacked from plain honor in us. I'll tell you what I think of that masked man's warning. Just this. I'm going back to the valley. I'm getting my share of that gold. Anybody that wants to come along, he'll get his share too. What do you say? Cool. Hey, that beats farming all the pieces. Jim, I wish you wouldn't go. Oh, Gene, I can't stay home while everyone else gets rich. I'd believe that, masked man. I reckon it'd be easy for a girl to believe a tall, strong-looking critter like that. I've got to go, Gene. Maybe I can get rich enough to take us back east where we can live in a big house like millionaires. But I don't want to go back east, Jim. And I don't want a big house. I just want you. If anything happened to you... Oh, nothing will happen.  Bit for the gold, bug. Mention gold to a pack of men and they clean loose what sense they ever had. Maybe this masked man was an outlaw. But I say it's plain foolish to go again his warning. Meanwhile, the Lone Ranger had written to join Tonto in a small camp. Oh, sir. Take message to settlement, Kimisabi. Yes, Tonto. The fellow we heard about is named Fred.  And settler go back to the valley, huh? They probably will. Their own fault if Indian make more trouble. We can't leave it at that, Tonto. Not when there are women and children who will suffer. What we do? We ride to Red Wolf's village. Him on warpath? He's never been a particular enemy of the white people. Him make war now? Yes, because pioneers entered the valley. And make him see that they don't realize what they've done. While we're there, we'll let the Indian chief know that trouble in the district might bring army troops. Maybe him listen. Where's his village? We take trail over hill. Come on, Tonto, we'll start right away. While the masked man and Tonto headed for the Indian village, the pioneers made plans for an expedition to the valley of the Great Spirit. The men were busy in their respective homes packing provisions for the trip. Jim Gunning was as enthused as any of them. His wife and mother helped him pack. But they did not share his enthusiasm. Jim, I really set to make this trip. Won't you change your mind? Jean, don't worry. Everything's gonna be all right. No use arguing with Eugene. He's just like his father was. The more he's in the wrong, the stubborner he gets. Just leave him be and come here and help me with these bills. All right, I'll help. I don't see why you're so dead set against the trip, ma'am. You know why as well as I do. Even so, I wouldn't say so much if it was anybody but Fred Munson putting you up to it. What have you got against Fred? He's no good.  And don't tell me that foolishness either because I know what I'm talking about. You're the limit, ma'am. You don't like his eyes. Jim, Jim, you ought to pay more attention to what your mother thinks. I'll answer the door. Oh, it's you, eh, Fred? Hello, Hank. Good evening, Mrs. Gunning. Come on in. Checking to see for sure who's starting with us tomorrow morning. We can count on you, can't we, Jim? You sure can. Fine, glad to hear it.  What have we come with, sir? To hunt for gold? Oh, we did not. We come here because it was free land to be had but now you've gone and got everybody stirred up. Shucks, ma'am. Don't nobody have to come along that don't want it. Just try to keep a gold-bitten man at home. Don't you learn more, Father, your Fred. She's never as mad as she sounds. How do you know how mad I am? We won't stay to start a fight. Remember, Jim, we started sun-up. Come along, Hank. See you at sun-up. Check the everyone. They're all coming. Just, Fred, why wouldn't they with gold to be had? There's gold, all right. They'll find it, too, Hank. But maybe they won't keep it. Huh? What's that, Fred? What do you mean? Maybe after they've helped find it something will happen so it'll all belong to us. I don't say that. You will, Hank. You will. But if you repeat what I just said you'll regret it. It was night when the Lone Ranger and Tonto reached the Indian village of Red Wolf. They reigned up outside the circle of light cast by the campfire and looked upon a strange scene. A medicine man outlined by the flames to direct in the center of the village. Around him was gathered the entire tribe. Medicine man, make prayer. You understand them? And pray to great spirit. And tell great spirit. It not thought of red men that pale face go in valley. Anything else? And tell great spirit. Then capture pale face for sacrifice. For sacrifice? Bad time for us to enter the village, Tonto. Plenty bad. We have no choice. Come on, sir. Come, come, come, follow. Curtain falls on the first act of our Lone Ranger story. Before the next exciting scenes please permit us to pause for just a few moments. Tonto and Tonto found Red Wolf's tribe gathered to chant at the sudden appearance of the masked man the chant ceased to brook place. Then there were threatening shouts. Oh, sir. Tell them, Tonto. Tell them we're friends. Not to halte, manicte. Not to. Not to. What does he say, Tonto? Him got son who speak to us. Him name young Wolf. Young Wolf? Begum is friends. Right man, not friend, my people. I am friend. But I have ridden into your village without protection if I were an enemy. You speak straight tongue, my people, not harm you. Why you come here? Speak.  Huh? That's so? You attack because man entered the valley of the great spirit. Is it just at all white men are to be punished for the guilt of one? What one man do, whether do, my father proud chief, you must make chief see wisdom. There must be no more war. My father not want war. There be peace less white man once more at the valley great spirit. You carry word. Thank you, young Wolf.  Ah, that good. You go now. Not to. Not to. Not to. Not to. Come on, Tondo. It's up to us to keep the settlers from the valley. Get them up small. The lone ranger and Tondo camped that night feeling their work had been well done. The following morning they started on the all day ride that would take them to the settlement so they could once more warn the pioneers. But on that same morning Fred Munson had let a dozen men through the narrow opening and beneath the balanced rock to the sacred Indian valley of the great spirit. The men were pleased to note that Fred had spoken the truth. They found traces of gold in several of the streams and spent the day panning for the precious dust. It was evening when Fred Munson moved over to the side of his pal. Fred, something on your mind? Yeah, Hank. Remember what I said to you last night? That these fellas helping us find the gold but not keeping it? Yeah, I remember you speaking about it.  Well, I... Or have I got a range and accident so you won't be able to talk? No, no, Fred. I'm with you. That is, you can count on me. You won't turn squeamish with you. I said I'm with you. All right then. Jim Gunning has found a pocket. You mean he struck the real pay dirt? Yeah, that's what I expected would happen once we got a lot of men in here. Gosh, that beach panning out a few grains at a time. Sure it does. And it calls for using the blasting powder I brought. That's a good idea. Save a lot of digging. I don't mean to use the blasting powder that way. No? Look over yonder where the sides of the valley narrow down to a couple of cliffs. You see that big rock that's balanced right above the gap? Yeah, I've looked at it a dozen times. I was just about ready to topple over.  That rock's there to stay. If something don't happen to it. Like a bad storm, you mean? Or a charge of blasting powder. Blasting powder? But what? Wait. You're in this with me, Savvy. Gosh, Fred, we're pods, ain't we? That's what I've been bankin' on. How would you like to have all the gold to split between the two of us? Steal it, you mean? Sure. You got a way to do it? Well, Hank, I'll figure I'll tell the others to start on ahead. And when they get to the mouth of the valley, that rock above there will drop on them. But how do you arrange that? I mentioned I had blasting powder, didn't I? Yeah. You mean you're figuring to plant that powder again in the rock and set it off? Just so. But, Fred, that'd be murder. Fortune and gold is worth havin', isn't it? I'd do almost anything, yes. We've always been pods, you know we have. But to kill, to kill without givin' them a chance. You won't do it? I can't. Hank, you listen to me. Well, I can't. There's not a chance of you or anybody else gettin' in my way. Go welcome to share if you help, if you don't help, you won't share. And if you open your mouth or do just one thing to small my scheme, I'll fix you if I have to hang for it. At the settlement, the Lone Ranger and Tonto learned to their dismay that all the able-bodied men had gone to find gold in the Valley of the Great Spirit. Knowing this meta-war of extermination if Red Wolf's tribe knew what had happened, the masked man set a furious pace with the mighty Stallion Silver. One silver! With Tonto following on scout, the Lone Ranger maintained a steady pace through sunset and twilight and kept on toward the Valley of the Great Spirit at the same pace even though darkness added to the risk of such tremendous thieves. In the Valley, the men slept with their dreams of fabulous wealth. They had found their objective and planned to start for the settlement at daybreak. Fred Munson thought he was the only man awake. He called up the side of the Valley, then made his way to the overhanging rock, for he spent some time rigging an arrangement of strings and blasting powder. When he left, another man moved through the darkness. I can't let him do it.  Maybe I can change the powder. There you are. Who is it? I saw you when I was in the settlement. The masked man. What are you up to? Now, wait a minute, mister. When we approached this valley, we saw someone working close to that rock. He was outlined against the sky. Was it you? No. No, it wasn't me. Who was it? I look here, mister. Jim Gunning liked your style. So did his wife, so did his maw. Yes. I guess I do, too. I've got to have help. Well, maybe I can give it to you. The following morning, the men from the settlement were ready to start from the valley. Fred Munson pretended that he had trouble with the saddle strap. Fred, what in tarnation's the matter? We're all packed to go and you're not even settled. I'll be ready in a little while, Jim.  Do you need some help? Hank'll help me. Won't you, Hank? Yeah, yeah, sure thing, Fred. Go on, boys. We'll catch up all right.  Then we'll ride on ahead, and you boys come as soon as you can. Sure, sure. We'll be along. Come on, fellas. Get up there. You still figure on going through with it, Fred? You better do. When you see how easy it was, you'll be sorry you didn't help me.  Is that that? How did you work it so the blast would go off at just the right time? Easy. I got the powder all set, and I tied a six gun next to the blast and part it. I tied a fishline to the trigger and ran it down the side of the wall to a forked stick, and stretched across the opening a couple of inches off the ground. That's pretty smart. The first horse going out of this valley will fire the blast. Every one of those men will be killed. I'm sure they will. We'll report it as an accident. If worse comes to worst, we can blame it on the Indians. Or that masked man. Fred, look. Great day. That's the masked man. He's coming here. He's coming right for us. I'll fix him. Fred, don't shoot. Come find it. Hank, watch it. Knock my arm up. I want you. Now, see here. Give me that gun. Hank, Hank, do something. I'm with me. Let me go. Let me go, I said. Hank, you go along and bring Fred's horse. He's riding on silver with me. Right. Hank, are you in on this masked man's work? If you told him... Come find it. Let me go. Not just yet up. You go. Let me go. Easy, silver. The more you squirm, the tighter I'll hold you. One, two, three. Fred Munson was helpless in the strong grip of the Lone Ranger, which held him across the back of silver. The great horse raced ahead through the valley and quickly overtook the rest of the men from the settlement. Masked man went ahead amid shouts of surprise and rained up where the valley narrowed down to a gap beneath the overhanging rock. Oh, silver, oh, easy city. Now you can get out, Munson. Boys, boys, help me get this man. I'm not holding you any longer. Go on. Leave this valley. Walk ahead. No. No. What's going on, anyhow? Why'd you bring Fred here? Go on, Munson. Walk straight ahead. No. No, don't make me do that. What are you afraid of? Well, I thought that Fred is afraid of something. What's the matter with you, Fred? What's got into you? I'll tell you what's the matter with him. He's fixed blasting powder to drop that rock on all of you when you go out of the valley. The blast will be fired when anybody touches a string that's stretched above the ground. How about that, Fred?  No, no. Faith will confirm what I've told you. You'll show you where the blast is planted. You'll find Munson's own gun fixed to set it off.  Otto was waiting to stop you if you'd gone too close. All right now, Toto. All right. And in, then? He's been over behind them shrubs all this time. Yes. To stop you in case I was in trouble, Yes. To stop you in case I was delayed. Well, boys, I suggest we put some ropes on Munson. No, don't. We're taking you back as a prisoner, Munson. If we find that the masked man's given us the two facts, right, Sunday, you're gonna hang. How about it, boys? No, no, you can't do that. All right. All right. I won't be taken. You won't get me. Come back. Him go to the gap. Come back here. Look out. Look out. Here comes the rock. Jim, it's a miracle that you came back alive. You asked me. I'd say it's a miracle any of the men got back alive. Was anyone besides Munson hurt? A couple of the men were bruised with the small rocks that fell down after the big one. But nothing serious. What about the Redskins? I meant to tell you more. They came, a whole lot of them. They learned that we were in the valley and they were ready to kill every one of us. Oh, dear. That masked man and his engine friends saved our necks a second time. They talked to this chief and his son. They showed them what they could do. They talked to this chief and his son. They showed them that Fred Munson had been killed by the falling rock. Then he made them think that the spirits had taken revenge into their own hands. So the Indians agreed to let it go with that. You say that masked man made the Indians think the spirits had punished Fred Munson. Yeah. I wonder if perhaps that isn't partly true. In any case, that gold can stay in the valley of the great spirit for all of me. And that goes for all the rest of the men. We're going to farm and we'll farm. Unless the Lone Ranger tells us different. What you have just heard is a copyrighted feature of the Lone Ranger Incorporated.


This is the first review of 2024, and this is not the review I planned to do, but the vehicle I planned to review had technical difficulties of a mechanical nature. So I'm moving the review for next week up to this week. This is the one that was voted on by patrons. This is the winner of the Patreon poll, and they chose a weirdo. Hello G.I. Joe fans, HCC788 here, and it's the beginning of a new year, a year that will see the 10th anniversary of this channel. And we are starting with challenges and difficulties, which we must overcome. This review was chosen by supporters on Patreon. I put a poll up on Patreon, and of the three options, they chose Topside. G.I. Joe's Navy Assault Seaman from 1990. They could have chosen Blowtorch, the only figure from 1984 that I haven't reviewed yet, and we could have talked about pork chop sandwiches. They could have chosen Dusty, a figure that I like and would enjoy reviewing. But no, we're looking at Topside. Topside, the guy with blonde hair and blonde eyes, not an especially noteworthy character until you read the file card. Happy New Year. Now that we're more than halfway through January, HCC788 presents Topside. This is Topside, G.I. Joe's Navy Assault Seaman. That's Seaman from 1990. This figure was introduced in 1990 and was only available in 1990. It was discontinued for 1991. This is the only vintage version of Topside. There was only ever one later version in 2013 from the Collectors Club Figure Subscription Service. Topside was designed by Dave Hassell for Hasbro and was sculpted by Peter Twist. Alternate codenames for Topside included Barracuda, which was later used for a G.I. Joe submarine, Swabby, Marlin Spike, Gaff and Salty Dog. Topside was a member of G.I. Joe's Navy, which started in 1983 with torpedo. In 1984, they had Deep Six and Cutter, who wasn't really in the Navy. He was in the Coast Guard and he was the driver of the killer whale hovercraft. In 1985, they had Shipwreck and Kegelhaul, who was the commander of the USS Flag aircraft carrier. In 1986, there were two versions of wetsuit. In 1989, there was Deep Six Version 2. In 1991, there was Tracker. In 1992, there were a lot of G.I. Joe naval characters. There was Wetsuit Version 2, Deep Six Version 3 with the eco-warriors. And Cutter Version 2 with DEF. In 1993, there was Keelhaul Version 2 without the aircraft carrier. There was also Wetsuit Version 4 and there was a third version of Cutter. 1993 saw a fourth version of Deep Six. And in 1994, there was Shipwreck Version 2. Topside is a Navy Assault Seaman, which I guess means he works on ships and assaults the enemy. He's not a Navy SEAL and he's not designated as a sailor like Shipwreck. And some of the promotional materials he's described as having a job similar to Rampart. He protects the shoreline. Topside does it with missiles. Let's take a look at Topside's accessories starting with his primary weapon, which is this submachine gun, as far as I know, it's just called a submachine gun. It's in a very light gray, almost white plastic. It does almost look white. In fact, on the camera, it kind of looks white, but it's really a very light gray. It's a pretty basic design. It has a foregrip and a magazine. It's a serviceable weapon. The next accessory is the helmet in that same light gray, almost white plastic. It's a pretty basic looking helmet, a Fritz style helmet. We've had several other GI Joe helmets similar to this. It does have these tabs hanging down around the ears. Other than that, it's quite a simple looking helmet. According to the artwork on the card, the top of the helmet should be black, but the accessory was not painted. Also, based on presentation artwork by James Payette and box art for the retaliator, there may have been a clear visor planned for this helmet, but the final production accessory did not have that. Based on the two up sculpture for the figure and the helmet, there may also have been an antenna that was supposed to attach to one side of the helmet that was also canceled before production. That would make sense with top side secondary specialty. The next accessory is the backpack. This backpack is in the same very light gray plastic color as the helmet and the submachine gun. It has technical detail all over it. It is a missile launching backpack. As you can see, it has a couple of missiles in it. It also has a separate piece that swings out. This stand is hinged here. It swings out and the backpack doesn't have to just be a backpack. It can be placed on the ground and used as a weapon. And I think that is really great. That's a great play feature and great functionality. The backpack can hold two missiles, these small red missiles. And in fact, the figure comes with a third missile. So he has more missiles than he can actually carry. These missiles are very small. They don't have a lot of detail and they just slide into the launcher tubes. You can press them down and they will kind of wedge in there so they won't fall out too easily. They can wedge in there, they will stay in. But my problem is not so much the missiles or the backpack. It's this one. He has a third missile. There's no place to put it. And it's one of my pet peeves to have accessories that the figure can't hold. There is no firing mechanism for these missiles. There's no spring loaded missile launcher on this backpack. It was a little early in G.I. Joe to get the spring loaded missile launchers. Those really started coming a year after Topside was released. There's also not finger flick technology.  They are just static missiles that you manually pull out of the launcher to fire. The stand on Topside's backpack makes it more practical than another missile launching backpack from 1990 metal heads. He would launch his missiles directly from his back, which is crazy with the accessories out of the way. Let's take a look at Topside's articulation. He had the articulation that was standard for G.I. Joe figures well before 1990 so he could turn his head from left to right and look up and down. He could swing his arm up at the shoulder and swivel at the shoulder all the way around. He had a hinge at the elbow that allowed him to bend his arm at the elbow about 90 degrees. He had a swivel of the bicep so he could swivel his arm all the way around. This was an O-ring figure, meaning the figure was held together with a rubber O-ring that looped around the inside that allowed him to move at the torso a bit. He could move his legs apart about so far. He could bend his leg at the hip about 90 degrees and bend at the knee about 90 degrees. Let's look at the sculpt design and color of Topside starting with his head. And the head is interesting, depending on how you define interesting. He has very yellow blonde hair. His hair is in a flat top. He has a yellow beard, a yellow eyebrows and yellow eyes. They didn't bother to add a second color for the eyes. That's not a problem if the figure has brown hair. You can just give him brown eyes. But it doesn't work with yellow or red, both of which were used for 90s G.I. Joe figures. As it is, the hair color doesn't contrast very much with his pale skin. So the face almost looks blank on his chest. He has a bright orange life vest over a blue shirt. He has the word navy across the chest in black letters. There is a padded pattern all over the front and back of the life vest and some unpainted clasps down the front. There are no straps for the backpack, so I guess that just attaches with safety pins. I've seen this life vest called a May West, but it's not really. A May West vest is so called because when inflated, it makes the wearer look like they have a busty figure. It's named after the actress May West, who had a notably voluptuous figure. The arms feature blue rolled up sleeves and the rolls on the sleeves are painted white. So the inside of the shirt must be white. That's an extra paint application on the arms that we don't usually get. So that's nice to see the forearms are bare as are the hands. And on the left wrist, there is a gray wristwatch. The waist is light gray. It has a couple zipper details on the front. And instead of a belt, he's got a yellow rope tied around his waist. I'm sure that's regulation. His legs are in the same light gray as the waist piece. And down the outside of each leg is a dark gray seam. That's not a bad detail, but there are no other details on the legs. No weapons strapped to him or anything like that. He has tall black boots with dark gray bands around the top. And these dark gray details around the ankle that look like stirrups. In the presentation artwork, there is a compass detail on the left leg that did not make it to the production figure. Topside is kind of plain, which is my biggest problem with this figure. Not the orange life vest. I'm not normally in favor of bright colors, but I know every action figure line needs to have a variety of colors, even a military toy line. Well, this is a way to add bright colors to action figures without making them unrealistic. The orange life vest is not a problem, but the yellow eyes are a problem. Let's take a look at Topside's file card. His file card has his factionist G.I. Joe as a portrait of Topside here. His codename is Topside. He is the Navy Assault Seaman. His file name is John Blanchett. His primary military specialty is Navy Assault Seaman, as it should be. His secondary military specialty is telecommunications specialist. His birthplace is Fort Wayne, Indiana, and his greatest E6. This paragraph says Topside grew up on a small Indiana farm where he helped his father raise prize winning pigs. Pigs? After winning numerous county fair awards for his pigs, Topside quickly gained the reputation as Fort Wayne's Hog Master. Did he win the coveted Silver Sour award? When he was 20, Topside decided to leave the farm in search of a more exciting career. He enlisted in the Navy to see the world. And what did he see? He saw the sea and served as a deckhand on a ship that transported a G.I. Joe covert team to a mission site. He decided to take them all on at once because of his boldness and ability to look danger in the eye. He was offered a spot on the G.I. Joe team. That's how you get on the G.I. Joe team by picking fights with them. I have to assume this file card was written by Larry Hama, the writer of the G.I. Joe comic book. It's just too colorful. But there's a lot of text dedicated to pigs. What do pigs have to do with the Navy? I love them squealers. Pigs is a sailor's best friend. You got to have some pigs on the ship. You get bacon, you get ham, you get companionship. Companionship? Yeah, it's right. You get some pigs on the ship and the sailor don't even hardly need shore leave. And they squeal real good. Squee squee. Moving swiftly on this bottom paragraph has a quote. It says a really intense training program can produce a fairly tough individual. But Topside was born tough. He can down a plate of greasy scrambled eggs and hot wieners. Oh Lord, while sailing through seas, rough enough to send salty chief petty officers to the rail. I saw him take a full wind up uppercut punch from another seaman and not even budge. Needless to say, the other seaman didn't stay around to get Topside's response. Surprisingly, Topside's response was foul play, old chap. Topside's qualifications include picking fights with G.I. Joe and annoying other people so they punch him. This has got to be one of the strangest file cards you voted for this guy. We could have had pork chop sandwiches. Yeah, I got pork chop sandwiches. That's enough out of you. Looking at how Topside was used in G.I. Joe Media, well, he wasn't used much. He had a few appearances in the Deke era of the animated series, but not very many. He had the most screen time in the episode, An Officer and a Viperman. That episode title parodied the 1982 movie, An Officer and a Gentleman with Richard Gere. That episode was written by Michael Charles Hill, who recently engaged with the G.I. Joe fan community and talked about his experience working on the animated series in that episode, he ambushed and Pathfinder infiltrate Cobra by just signing up at a recruitment office. Cobra has those. They train in various Viper specialties at the Viper Training Academy. It's all very silly. He had a handful of other animated appearances, but nothing especially noteworthy. In the G.I. Joe comic book, as far as I know, he had no comic book appearances in the Marvel era. Looking at Topside overall, there are elements of a really good action figure here. I like the Orange Life Fest, as with Cutter, adding an Orange Life Fest to a naval character, adds some bright colors to the toy line without adding those bright colors to action figures that should be more camouflaged. The accessories are really good, all of them. The colors of the accessories complement the colors on the action figure really well. The backpack missile launcher has a lot of details and a stand. Really cool feature. The submachine gun is good. The helmet, even though it didn't have the black top like in the artwork, I think it looks fine the way it is. The missile launcher backpack does not really fire the missiles, but I'm not really into those gimmicks, so that's fine with me. The problems with Topside are not with the accessories or the color scheme or the overall idea of the figure. It's just some of the details, particularly some of the paint details, particularly the yellow eyes. We've seen figures with red hair where they paint the eyes the same color as the red hair, and that looks awful. It looks even worse when you have blonde hair and blonde eyes. That's a mistake I think you need to avoid at all costs. You could cut one of the other paint sprays on the figure to give him realistic colored eyes. The yellow eyes are just so off-putting, so off-putting that it's hard for me to see, no pun intended, the other things about the figure. I just look at his face and there are yellow eyes staring back at me. The rope belt is also kind of weird. I know G.I. Joe's dress code is rather lax. You have G.I. Joe characters wearing sweat pants and sneakers or wearing no shoes at all and this guy wearing a rope belt. I understand General Hawk is very lenient with the uniforms, but 7-Eleven has a more strict dress code than G.I. Joe. As colorful as the action figure is, the file card may be more colorful. Somehow we get from pig farms to eating eggs and sausages and puking over the rail and getting in a fist fight. I have to imagine this is how Popeye got started. You see, top side should have come with a can of spinach. G.I. Joe needed an expanded navy. They needed more guys to work on the water. So top side was an essential member of the G.I. Joe team. But because of the shortcuts and the cost cutting on this figure, it keeps me from really loving it. That was my review of top side. When will I get to the review I planned to do this week? I don't know. In fact, I don't know what I'm doing next week. My plans are all askew. I will figure it out. The 10th anniversary of this channel would be coming up in April of this year. I will be attending Joe Fest in Augusta, Georgia in June of this year. And in July, we will have Cobra Convergence 8. Check HCC788.com for updates on that. Next weekend, I will be at G.I. Joe Winterfest in Shepherdsville, Kentucky. I will leave a link to that in the description of this video. So please come out if you'd like to see me. The blame for this video goes to the names you see scrolling on your screen. Those are my supporters on Patreon and I love and appreciate every single one of them. And they chose this wacky review. Thanks for watching. I'll be back soon with something. I don't know. I'll see you then. And until then, remember only G.I. Joe is G.I. Joe. Did he leave Fort Wayne, Indiana for adventure?


All right, good morning everybody and my name is Sridharay here, I am one of the colleagues of Prof. Bernard and Prof. Shiva whom you have been hearing as part of this course. I am going to do a slightly different session today for the start in the sense that so far you have listened to a lot about cyber security and the various content associated with various topics that need to be taught in this course. So today's session is going to be a little bit about how do we teach so that students actually learn rather than students simply listen to us. So we are also going to run this in a slightly different format in the sense that we already have a video of this session which was conducted in a different course which was computer programming which was Prof. Fartek's course and what I am going to do is I am going to play that video and pause it at appropriate points for interaction as well as activity. The reason for trying this out is that if you find that this is useful you could simply play the video in your own colleges for your own colleagues benefit rather than wait for a live lecture every time. So in case there is some glitch with the video we do not expect any glitches to happen because we have done this already once or twice earlier but nevertheless in case there is any glitch I am physically present here and we will be taking it over into a live session. So to begin with we will start with the video. Let us get started. So let me ask this first question. So when we talk about MOOCs one of the things that come to mind and one of the things that we have been propagating also is the fact that we should create short videos excellent videos and these are expert videos which then students can see and then we can use a flip classroom model where students then come to class and discuss and so on and so forth. So the first question we want to ask is that is it enough to create these excellent videos? So I will talk about one experiment. So what happened in this experiment is that there were two videos video lectures that were created. So all the correct things were done. The duration was correct, the topic was proper, all of that and then it was the same content and the instructor and in one case the instructor spoke fluently, did not refer to any notes, made eye contact with the audience, all of that and in the other case the instructor spoke very haltingly, kept looking down, kept hesitating and things like that. So what do we expect in which video will more learning happen? The first one, right? So we expect that the first video is going to be much more effective than the next the displuent one. So interestingly it turns out that there is no difference in the amount of learning that happened to students in terms of what they were able to score in the exam, ok. Can you guess why? Because the method was different no the way they were the one ok, the method of instruction was the same. The mode of instruction or the quality of instruction was different, yeah what else? What else could be a reason? Students were not much interested in either of the videos, so it did not matter really whether you did a great video or not, ok. Lack of interaction. Lack of interaction is one, ok. They are only listening, ok. Let me ask a slightly different question. So just think of the subject in which you are really the expert, ok. What made you an expert in that subject? What is it that you did to become an expert in that subject? Tutorials. Tutorials? Little more, yeah. Self learning. To create the interest. Self learning. Self learning. So essentially the point is it is not really how well the instructor is able to deliver if you were to become an expert what the key is the practice, right. How much practice? So why did the students who did well do well? They did well because they practiced, they did the problems, ok. They went home and worked, all of that, ok. So that's the key point. So what we are saying is improving the fluency of lectures does not necessarily imply that better learning is good to happen. We need to focus on identifying what does lead to better learning, ok. So then let's ask the other question when we go from MOOCs to blended MOOCs, ok. So now say, ok, I have excellent videos and like many of you said interaction is the thing that is missing if I just look at a video, right. So plus interaction with a local instructor. Is that good enough? What do you think? Students are interacting with the local instructor. This is not like the MOOC instructor interacting with local instructors. Local instructor interacting with students locally. Is that good enough? Yes. Yes? It's better. It's better, ok. That's a good answer. It's better, ok. But it still does not cut it. Yeah. Somebody wanted to say something there. Yeah. Aimpoint comes, student learn by self-learning. But the local instructor teaches in local language but the contents are excellent. So student take both, local instructor instruction and the contents from excellent video. So I think that is a good one. Ok. So this is a good one but still I am going to say that in most cases the answer is still no, ok. Because once again this works for students who are self-motivated, students who are interested. All of those parameters have to be met, ok. Why? Because if you look at the average student who is kind of medium interested in the subject who is there because, ok, you know, it's there in the curriculum, I am being forced to sit here, let me listen to this guy somehow I have to pass the course. A lot of people are in that category, ok. So for that category of students, basic problem is students don't pay at most attention, right. Even right now, I am thinking that everybody is paying attention to me. I doubt if more than 50 percent are really paying attention to me, right. So we expect like some people are filling with their mobiles, I can already see there, some of them are having their laptops doing something else. I wonder are they taking notes or are they checking their email. So many things are there, right. So students don't pay at most attention, however well we interact or we attempt to interact with them. The only thing is students think that they know or understand because they are able to follow the lecture. This is a very big one, ok. Because for most good instructors, we are great lecturers. So when the student is sitting there and I am working out the example, the student is able to follow because the clarity is in my mind, not in the student's mind, ok. It's only later they realize that they have not really understood the topic. So something has to be done to make that happen, ok. Then as an interaction, when we say that look interactivity is the main thing that's going to make my students learn, it's difficult to ensure that all the students in the class participate actively. Even if you see now, ok. So there will be a person here, a person there, a person there who answers, who responds to me. It's hard to ensure that the people who are shy somewhere here, somewhere there, they also participate, ok. So that is the key difficulty, ok. Students with high motivation, high achievement levels, loud voice, they drive the pace, right. And students who are a little diffident, they get left behind, ok. And also students have a barrier responding to the instructor directly, you know. So you always feel that look, maybe my question is too stupid, I should not ask this question. How many of us feel that? We feel that all the time. So these are the barriers that come in the way of even an interactive class. So what we are doing right now is a typical interactive class. And even in such a class, these barriers come in the way. You don't ensure that, ok, every student who is there is engaged with the content, no student is getting distracted. Yes, question. Sir, I think interaction should be must, because if interaction is not in any lecture, then queries remain always queries. What about queries? That's correct. So, ok, let me clarify. I am not saying interaction is not required. Are you told in in person, in most cases it's no. It's not good enough. But I think so 100% interaction should be must. Then what about queries, queries remain always queries. That's fine. I am not saying no to interaction, you have not got the point. Ok, what I am saying is you need something more than interaction. Ok, fine sir. That's what I am saying. Ok, interaction is definitely required. Ok, what we need is something more. So, what is that more? That's what we are trying to get to. Ok, so queries have to be answered, but only students with high motivation even speak up. So, there may be, take this particular audience itself. You know, there may be a question in somebody's mind over there. That person may or may not have asked the query. So, there needs to be a mechanism where which everybody's queries can come. That is the point I am trying to make. Ok, ok. So, moving on. So, one solution for this problem is what is called active learning. Making an active learning strategy in the classroom. Ok. So, the active learning, the basic definition is that students are going to engage with the content by writing, reflecting, thinking. See, what we realize that the only way I become an expert at something is by practicing that thing. I don't become an expert at something by listening to somebody. So, I need to practice that thing. And what we want to do in active learning is get students to do that practice right there. Ok, so that's the key point. So, there are many informal strategies. See, many of us do this. I mean, it's not like something very revolutionary. Many of us do this in our class. We make small groups and things like that. So, the only thing that we say in order for something to qualify as an active learning strategy is that we have to carefully design these activities. They should be explicitly based on theories of learning. There should be some theoretical basis to saying, ok, why I am creating the activity in this manner? Otherwise, as teachers, we always have a lot of guesses in our mind, right? We feel that, ok, this is not happening, let me try that. And we feel that that will work. So, those don't qualify as formal active learning strategies, ok? So, there has to be some theoretical basis and they have to be evaluated repeatedly through empirical research. That's what is called active learning. Ok. Does it really help? That's the next question that we want to answer. No, I should have bothered to learn some active learning technique before I know whether it really helps, ok? So, there was this huge experiment that was conducted, ok? Across 6000 students, 62 courses, variety of colleges and so on. And what was measured was how much did the students learn at the end of the course, ok? And this is what they found, ok? So, all the red is what people who are lecturing, mostly lecturing. And all these people who are lecturing were also great lecturers, they were not like poor lecturers. They were great lecturers, many of them had won best teacher awards and things like that, ok? And you find that students by and large learnt about 25 percent of the content that they were supposed to learn, ok? That's what the roughly the red bar is showing. On the other hand, if you take the green ones, which is the instructors who did some kind of active learning strategy in their classroom, you find that there is a range, but which starts the lowest is almost as good as the best lecturer, ok? So, even if you do a poorly run active learning activity in your class, it still is going to be almost as good as a very great lecture, that's a big deal, ok? And if you do a good job, you can get learning gains up to 0.7, which is a really big deal, ok? So, that's basically what this slide is saying, ok? So, what we want to see is, find out some of these strategies, ok? So, one of these we will be talking about. So, what are the features of active learning strategies? So, the first one is that students engage in some problem solving activity, some engagement with the content during the class, ok? Not later on just before the exam, but while the class is going on, you want them to engage with the content, ok? Specific ideas are elicited, students are asked to express their reasoning and all of that, ok? Let's do this through some examples. So, there are several such strategies and I used the first three on a fairly regular basis, ok? So, one is called think pair share, one is called peer instruction, one is called team pair solo, many others are there. Now, each of these have their own specific situation in which they are most appropriate, ok? So, peer instruction for example, you may have already encountered in the notion of clickers, ok? So, when you set up a clear question, clicker question, that's one step of the peer instruction. The second step of peer instruction which is also needs to be done with the clicker question is a discuss between the pairs and then vote again, ok? So, what I will be talking about today is the think pair share, one activity, ok? All right. So, this time to do something now. So, consider a large class, this is a problem that I am posing, ok? Consider a large class, ok? Maybe an auditorium like this in which a class is going on and imagine that I am going on for 90 minutes, which is what my duration is, right? One and a half hours, ok? And what you have to do is predict the number of students, consider that you are students, ok? And you have to predict how many people in this auditorium are going to be listening to this fellow for 90 minutes, ok? That's your job, ok? So, what you want to do is, you want to plot, what is the percentage of engagement? What is the percentage of the audience that is going to listen to me as time progresses, ok? So, you all have your notebooks, try to draw this graph, ok? Draw a graph of engagement versus time, ok? That's the goal.  Imagine students sitting there and try to predict how is the students' engagement or students paying attention to the instructor going to vary as the class progresses. So, do this on your own, we are not yet ready to talk to each other. I'll give you time to talk to your neighbor. So, first some graph of yours, your own has to be drawn. Done, has everybody drawn a graph? Yes. Ok, how many people need one more minute? Ok, 30 more seconds. Draw your own graph. Ok, so that's the think phase. So, you have done your own thinking about what, how the graph of students' engagement versus time is going to look, ok? Now, let's move to the next phase. So, now we are going to do this in pairs, ok? So, whoever is sitting next to you, it doesn't matter right side, left side and all. There's no rule, ok? And what you want to do is examine each other's graphs saying, ok, I got a graph like this. What was my thinking that made me give a graph like this? Somebody else may have drawn a graph like that. What was the thinking for your neighbor to come up with a graph like that? That is step one. And step two, come up with an idea by which the graph can look like this. What does this mean? This means that all students are engaged for 80% of the students are engaged for 80% of the time, ok? Go ahead, talk to your neighbor now. Look into your neighbor's graph. See if it is similar to yours. Most people seem to have done this part of examining each other's graphs and throwing stones at each other saying, no, no, it won't be like this, it won't be like this and all of that. Ok, now move on to the next step where you come up with a technique. What is it that you can do in the class to ensure that 90-minute class students are consistently engaged, ok? So, what can you do? Can you show a video? Can you do a drama? What is it that you can do to keep that attention? So, we are moving on to this next step. So, that's the correct phrasing. Sir, it's depend on the lecture, whether it is the first lecture or last lecture. Ok, that's an answer. Yeah, I am coming to that. Ok, possible solutions for engagement. Yeah, somebody said repeat the lecture, right? At an interesting time, suitable time I will say. Ok, I am not going to use numbers and all, I will just note down. Ok, somebody else was saying? Role play. Role play, ok. Can we do role play? So, ok, the thing is now as people are giving suggestions, what the others need to think about is evaluate the idea, ok? So, if I say role play, you have to think, ok, how many role plays will I be able to do in a 90-minute class? Will it sustain? So, that sustained engagement. See, that's the point that what we have here is not simply engagement, ok? It's not saying I want the class to go up once to 80 percent and then kuch bhi ho sakta. That's not what we are saying. We are saying that we have to stay at 80 percent or above. So, can each of these techniques, we should ask this question. Can it do that? So, ok, group activities such as what? See, it's not enough to simply say group activities. You have to give me an example such as what? Group activity can be like, ok, talk about what you are going to have for lunch. Think, share, let's leave it. Think, share. Ha, good one, real-time examples. Real-time examples. Throw quiz after every 30 minutes, ok. Throw questions at them randomly. Yeah, go ahead, I am listening. Ok, give marks for right answers. Sir, explain technical terms with non-technical terms. Hello. Hello. Actually, sir, students understand, for non-technical terms, just compare your technical terms with non-technical terms. Actually, that's a good one. Yes. So, for those of you who laughed. So, this, so many of you found this to be a strange suggestion. Explain technical terms with non-technical terms. Actually, it's a very effective one. Because one of the things that prevents students from learning is the jargon, ok. And in fact, when I teach networking, the first thing that they do is a totally non-technical exercise. And then only you bring them into technical terms. So, for those of you who found, because I am commenting upon particular one, because I heard people think that it's not a valid one. Ok, now you can go ahead. What is it that you wanted to say? You can start with the known and go for unknown. Start with known and go to unknown, yes. Sir. Yes. Sir, sometimes rewarding a student, whosoever completes the activity first. So, sometimes we can give reward to a student, whosoever completes the activity first. Ok, that's done. You ask for the right answer. Sir. Somebody else had a comment here, yeah. After your class, around 22.5 minutes, you tell a joke to the students. A joke. Most of the students who are sleeping, they will pay attention. Ok, tell a joke to students, most of them may pay attention. We have to conduct games. Conduct games. We have to play animation videos. Ok. Which is related to our subject and unrelated one. So, also we have to play to reference the student. Remember. Sir, one thing more. So, somehow we have to bring all the minds of students to the classroom. All the? Minds of the students. So, that is the question. How? Somehow is not enough. Yes sir. Some environment you have to create. Any environment you have to create. Yeah, so what is it that you are going to create in the environment? So, these are all problem specifications which are masquerading as solutions. Sir, ask the students to come to the blackboard and explain whatever you taught in the class. Ask the students to come to blackboard. Ok. Sir, at the beginning of lecture we discussed 3 to 5, in 3 to 5 minutes, the previous law topic. Make it ready. Previous lecture, previous topic. So, any ideas which are not already listed? New ideas. So, we will have to reward for asking good questions and answering also. Answering already it is listed. Asking questions also we should reward sir. Ok. Reward for asking questions. Ok. Maybe class interaction who interacts more that maybe semester and we should give some credit. Asking questions. Ok. Five marks to you. Giving an analogy. And put some competitions in between those two groups. Make a group and put competitions. Ok. Somebody from that side. Yeah. Yes sir. As a teacher have a great command on the subject matter and lectures so that student automatically pay attention. They should gain something from the lecture. So, they should be direct contact between teacher and student. The topic will be clear to the teacher. He can clearly explain to the student. Then I think student will not deviate. So, this is the key point. Ok. So, this again another important misconception that needs to be addressed. One minute. Ok. Lecture so that students automatically pay attention. This is the point I am trying to make. This was my first slide. This does not happen. However value lecture. Students only seem to pay attention. Students only think that they understood. Students learn only when they practice. Yeah. When students are solving examples. Go to them and help them. Ok. Give them some clues so that they can go forward. Give examples and clues. Ok. Come here. Discuss with current affairs, news and current issues. Improve general knowledge of student. In a networking class. Yeah, we can change environment. Ok. We can give an analogy at the start of the lecture. An analogy is already listed. Ok. I will write it again. Relate your discussion with the career. Relate the topic with the career. Ok. That is a good one. Relate topic with the career. So, this is a very common one that I use. For example, when you are talking about a topic. If you tell them, look, when you are going for a job interview. I say questions are coming. These type of questions will come. Suddenly everybody will be paying attention to you. Ok. That is the kind of thing. Yeah. That lady has been. Tell and then solve. Good one. Tell students to set quizzes. Sir, another solution is to make the quiz. Yes, sir. Make the quiz as per the application domain of the topic that has been taught in the class. Yeah. Or it may be a reverse word. You have to first fire the quiz related to the realistic application. Ok. And ask what is related. Ok. Last question. Last response. Sir, one point is left. We should shift the seating plan of the students time to time. It's a good one. Again, nothing to laugh. It's a good one. Change seating plan from time to time. Why this also works? Because people get, you know, one is the blood circulation and second they get used to that group. You break that group. Ok. Absolute last one. Ok. Don't stick up to the class. Get it. Yeah. Interact with the students. Yeah. Sir, there are a lot of points which has been covered. So, I think that there should be day by day practice. First point you can apply on the first day. Second point you can apply on the second day. Try to do something new every day so that the students get excited and will attend the class daily. Hello, sir. Yeah, you can apply. Daily new methods should be applied. Ok. Hello, sir. Excuse me. Last response, I think. Ok. Sir, this also depends upon the student's standard. Suppose a first year student is there. Then suppose I am teaching a particular topic. Then I will regularly ask the question from this topic. Solution. I ask for solution. Ok. Then another thing is suppose a student in final year and I am teaching a particular topic. Then I will try to relate that topic to another stream, another concept. Ok. Suppose I am teaching computer programming. If students are final year then I will relate particular topic, particular concept through operating system, compiler designing and automata. If a student is final year. If first year student then I will try to make interesting progress. Ok. Thank you. So, what we have managed to do now in about 10 minutes or so, less than 10 minutes I think. 7 minutes is what we have taken for this. In about 7 minutes we have come up with a whole list of strategies. Some of these strategies will work. The question that we have to ask is which of these are likely to help me to sustain the engagement. Ok. So, one such activity is think-ware share which you also mentioned and which is the one that we use. Ok. So, what is think-ware share? What we just did. Ok. So, what did you do? First you thought for 1 minute, do your own graph. Then you talk to another person and came up with some strategy of what should be the graph, what we can do. And then we had a discussion as an entire class. So, that is exactly what is think-ware share. Ok. So, why should we use this think-ware share in blended MOOCs in this environment. So, the thing is that the well-known challenges to teaching learning in large classes they also apply in these blended MOOCs. Again when you are in your center you are going to have people whom you don't know, you are going to have an auditorium type of environment, you are going to have people who are doing something in that corner, somebody else doing in this corner and so on. Ok. So, the point is that many of the strategies that we came up with engage only some of the students. So, what we want is a strategy that engages the entire class, not just those who are interested or not just those to whom I am talking to. But everybody, take for example right now in this think-ware share.  That is the important thing that we need to ensure in a classroom. Ok. So, TPS is a relatively easy way to achieve this benefit, small group learning during the synchronous sessions of a blended MOOC. So, this is the formal definition. I am going to skip it. You all understood it that in the think-phase the teacher is going to ask a specific question and students think about what they know and come up with some individual answer. In the pair-phase the teacher asks another question which is related to the previous one, students share their ideas and come up with the new answer. And in the share-phase everybody discusses, everybody throws in their ideas into the pool and then we have a discussion about those ideas. Ok. So, why does it work? It works because students are actively engaged and students learn from each other. See that is the whole point that suppose I were to give a lecture on what is a way in which to have students being interested in your classroom. Ok. Just imagine that I made one slide on each of these points. Ok. So, just imagine that these are the points that I want to tell you and I made one slide on each of these points and telling you why this is a great idea, how you can use this idea to keep your classroom engaged. I start at 9 o'clock and I keep on going one slide after another till 10.30. It's the same set of ideas. Ok. What will happen? You are going to basically fall asleep. Right. So, now instead of that it's the same ideas, but what has happened is the social processes come in. Students are learning from each other. So, it's your ideas, it's no longer my idea, my telling you that ok look this is the way to solve the problem. So, your idea which is being so that's why there is a lot of buy in for students to engage with that content. Ok. Then there are a lot of other benefits. Makes the class interactive. Students realize that even others are struggling. This is again a very big benefit of this technique. Ok. So, often in a classroom you will find that students don't speak up, especially the ones who are not able to keep up they won't speak up. But then the moment you let them talk to their neighbor they realize that even they don't understand it. Ok. Then it is fine. We can go on. Ok. So, that is a very good way for them to quickly understand or quickly clarify from their neighbor which they can't do with the instructor. Ok. And most importantly includes all the students in the teaching learning process. Ok. Ok. So, now coming to this particular course on computer programming TPS in a blended MOOC on computer programming. Ok. Why should you care? Ok. So, you should care because the MOOC will have TPS activities to be carried out during the synchronous interaction phase and you as a local instructor will be facilitating these activities and your students learning is going to depend upon how well you execute the TPS. Ok. So, what does the TPS activity look like in computer programming? Ok. All that graph business was all fine. How does it look in computer programming? Ok. So, this is an example and then we will write one activity of your own. Ok. Here is an example. So, the question is that I want my students to write a program to find the smallest and largest element in a given array. Ok. So, there is an array of n items, integers. Ok. I want students to write a program to find the smallest as well as the largest element in that array. How are you going to do that? Ok. So, in this case what I tell them is, so what I have is each of these phases is on a different slide. For us to discuss I put all of them on a on one slide. Ok. In the think phase I tell them ok write the pseudocode, take out your notebooks, write the pseudocode for how to solve this problem. Ok. Then in the pair phase I say ok now that you have got some idea of the pseudocode work with your neighbor and come up with the C plus plus code for solving this problem. Ok. And in the share phase I say ok here is my program for doing this. Let us compare have you used a for loop? Have I used a while loop? All those kind of things. Then we talk about in the share phase. Ok. Pros and cons. So, this is the activity. Does that is the activity clear to everybody? What I get them to do? Post the question and then say what should be done in the think phase? What should be done in the pair phase? What is to be done in the share phase? Ok. Do you believe that this is a good activity? Ok. So, I mean if you do not believe that it is a good activity the next part is irrelevant, but assume let us assume that this is a good activity ok. So, what we want to find out is why is this a good TPS activity? Let us say I am claiming that this is a good TPS activity. Ok. So, what you have to do is figure out ok what is there in this? That is making it work. Once again I will note down your responses. So, what do you observe about this activity? That you think makes it a good TPS activity. Students start thinking their own. Students start thinking on their own. Ok. So, if you I am doing this in a you know group discussion phase for lack of time ok. You can talk to your neighbor, you can talk to your neighbor and then together tell me one idea or I mean this itself can be executed as a think pressure activity ok. I can make you write, I can make you talk to your neighbor and then we can share. But instead of that we are sharing directly. Yeah. No, no, why? That is the benefit of TPS. Why is this particular activity good? So, that is the general benefit of TPS. Why is this particular activity a good one? A student will find that for the same topic or for the same example what other people's what is coming in other people's mind. Yeah, good one. What are the relevant ways of thinking to that particular topic? Yeah. So, this is a good one. Students get to know how other people are thinking. Ok. In a systematic manner. I will start from there. Yeah. By writing code they will get to know where they are confused. They know how to work in a team. How to work in a team. Ok. But that is again general. We are now talking about specifically why is this a good activity? Why are this, why is this what has been stated here in the think phase? Why is this a good thing to say? Why is it good to ask them to write C++ code with a partner? Yeah. Because everybody need to contribute because they need to share it with their peers. Ok. Everybody needs to contribute. Ok. So, I am going to just take three from each row. Ok. Sir. Sir. I am taking everybody's answers. Think, he is thinking self then applying the knowledge in a group and comparing that whatever the applied knowledge with the whatever the demo or with other group members. Yeah. So, this again is a benefit of TPS itself. So, why is this particular a good? Sir, this approach is having a glimpse of group discussion or group study. No, no. I mean we are going broadly into the benefit of TPS. That is not my question. Sir, so that is what the human tendency is that when we do something in this way, we remember it very closely. So, when the student gets stuck with the logic over there and he discusses with the neighbor. At the time of exam suppose this type of problem occurs, he remembers that logic with the discussion. Agreed. So, all of these are agreed. Ok. I am going to actually impose a rule here. All of these are agreed. These are valid points, but they are all points which are related to TPS in general. I am asking for very specific reason. The question is why is this a good TPS question? Why is this particular question a good one? That is my question. Not why is TPS a good activity? What I feel that this particular question is having the sequentiality and the analytical behavior. So, every question which has been just discussed, it will be having some concluding remarks over the analytical behavior of the students. So, sequential behavior is there and the analytical behavior is there. Yes. So, this is the type of answer that I am looking for. Why this particular question is a good TPS question? Because actually this process relates with R&D, research and development. You are going back into why TPS is a great idea. We do not want to go there. Why is this particular activity, this particular question, this particular sentence that has been written, why? Sir, self-motivated. Self-motivated. Okay. Students are reading books only. This is the attempt given to the students that they have to write their own sitting groups. Okay. Last night yesterday we have made a group discussion on the same thing. Okay. Sir. Okay. So, here again there is a good point that pseudo code. See the point that I am trying to get across here. Sir, the knowledge and information of the students will be shared among the multiple students. Again, that is the benefit of TPS. I agree. That is the benefit. This column. Yes, sir. Students can get optimal solution of the problem if they are comparing it to each other programs. Okay. That is also. Sir, within a time date we have to complete everything. Within a time limit you have to complete everything. That is a good one. Sir. The next one is order. The pseudo code next to the programming. The order level. Sir, weaker students get benefited. Yes. That is true. Okay. So, I am going to move on. Last person's comment. All the classes involved in thinking process. All classes involved in thinking process. Agree. Okay. So, now let me say. Let me illustrate why this is a good TPS activity. Okay. There are two, three points that I want you to observe here. Not the aspect of ThinkPairShare itself, but the first aspect that which some of you mentioned which is there in the slide is that the first activity that you give is something which everybody can do. Okay. That is the thing that you want to observe. Okay. So, you pose a problem. What has happened? First you pose a problem saying that do this. Write a program to find the smallest and largest element in a given array. Okay. Now, imagine a student who doesn't know programming who is not able to keep up with the class. Okay. Imagine a student who has bunked the last two classes and who has suddenly come up into this class. Okay. Even that student should be able to attempt that problem in the think phase. Okay. That is the goal of the think phase. Okay. So, if you write a very complicated question here in the think phase, if you say in the think phase, if I give a question like, okay, write an order and log an algorithm for sorting of an array. Okay. That's a bad think phase question because there may be students who don't know how to do an order and log an algorithm. There may be students, many other things may be a problem. Okay. So, what you want is to make that whatever happens in the think phase should be attemptable by everybody. Okay. So, what is required to write pseudocode for this problem? What does the student need to have? Common sense. Okay. So, the think phase question should be just based on common sense. Okay. What did I need you to do for drawing that first graph? Just your own experience. What did you think happened in your class? That's all you need. No specialized knowledge is required for the think phase question. Okay. Every student is able to attempt that. That is an important thing to note. Okay. Second point. So, there are two, three points. So, the first point is we set up a problem. Okay. Which sounds interesting. Second is the think phase should have something that every student can attempt. Then the pair phase is connected to the think phase. You're saying write the C++ code if I give a different problem in the pair phase. Again, it's a bad idea. Okay. So, it has to be connected to the think phase. So, I did this code. So, the moment the student writes a pseudo code. Okay. The moment I say, okay, how to find the smallest and largest. Okay. Maybe I will go through the array one by one. And as I find it, I will store it. As the moment the student has written something down on paper, they are owning that idea. Okay. That's exactly what happened to you also. The moment you drew a graph, you feel, this is my graph. This is my graph. And then you start talking to the neighbor. So, the pair phase has to involve that logic with the student has themselves created. Okay. So, these two have to be connected. So, you say, okay, take your pseudo code and do something more with it. So, now, okay, I may know the C++. I may not know the C++. If I don't know my neighbor will tell me, together, we'll figure something out. If both of us don't know, we'll ask the next group. Somebody or the other in the class will be able to tell me what is the syntax I need to use. Okay. So, that's why the connection between so, the first thing is that it should be simple and clear what is required. The second thing is there should be a connection between the two phases. Then in the shared phase, you're saying, okay, compare with this demo. So, once again, now they have something of their own and they're saying, okay, here is the prof's answer. Let me see why my answer is different. Is my answer better than the teacher's answer? So, those challenges they start looking at in the comparison phase. Okay. So, these are the three main reasons why this particular activity is a good TPS activity. Okay. One, think phase is attemptable by everybody. Two, pair phase is connected to the think phase and builds on it. And three, in the shared phase, there is something which everybody can contribute to the discussion. Okay. Is that the main sense? Okay. So, if you have any queries on this active learning techniques that we just saw, we can take some queries on that. So, if you have any comments or any queries as you saw in the video also about why to do active learning, how to do think-pair-share or whether it will be useful in your class and so on, you can raise your do a hand raise on the A view and we can do some live interaction on that. Yeah. Yeah, Raja Ram Bapu Institute of Technology. Please go ahead. Sir, how do we be able to implement PPS in large class ones? Because we have 78 strengths in our class. So, it is like, it is somewhat quite complicated to implement in the large class ones. Okay. So, the question is how do we implement PPS in a large class room? So, the point here is that it is complicated to implement PPS in a large class room but then what you will find is that because you may think that how will I let so many pairs of students share their answer and so on but what you will find is that once you have a few answers on the board typically any question even when we give a design question will have only about four or five different answers already there need not speak up you will find that the number of different answers reduces. In fact that is what you would have also noticed in the video that there were many people who are giving similar answers and they were all being put together as saying this answer is similar to that type. So, it is possible to do that in a large class also. Okay. So, I am going to take one question theory syllabus according to think-pair-share. Okay. So, the question is how can we divide theory syllabus and lab syllabus according to think-pair-share. So, I really do not know the answer to that one because ideally you should not have something separate as theory and lab. They should be doing the think-pair-share is one way to bring the lab also into the theory class where you are getting students to think and do good problems to do as think-pair-share activities in your classroom. Okay. In the lab itself separately again you could possibly have students work in groups but that would be more like you know group problem solving rather than specific think-pair-share activities. So, what strategy do you suggest to motivate the students who do not involve in the think state? So, what strategy do you suggest concern on the part of many of us as instructors that what happens if somebody is not getting involved or somebody is being disruptive in the class. Okay. So, one thing that you can do is you can see the first thing that the students need to feel is that you have their best interest at heart. So, once you have a rapport with the students that is when you will be able to you know simply keep telling them that okay think phase unless you write something you will feel that you know the answer but you actually will come to know whether you know it or not only when you write down. So, maybe the first couple of times you might find some reluctance and the thing to do at that point is to simply pause you know. So, you will find that all the others also eventually get into the game and after about three sessions of think-pair-share you will find that nobody needs to be told what is to be done the moment you put up think phase you will find that notebooks come out automatically and people start writing. Okay. Perumal college. How can we select the topics for think-pair and share activity and how to question. So, depending upon the goal different active learning techniques are suitable. So, for example if your goal is to check whether the student has understood what you taught in the previous lecture then peer instruction is a better technique where you pose a question give a set of possible answers and have the students select their answer and vote for their suitable when we have open-ended question. So, when you want students to come up with pros and cons of different design solutions or when you want students to discover that there are multiple solutions possible. For example if you look at the sorting of the array question so typically you could teach that as a series of lectures on various sorting algorithms starting from selection sort insertion sort and so on or you could pose a question to the students and they will give you the basic ideas of how each of these algorithms work and then it is only a matter of getting into the detail of what is the complexity of these algorithms. So, Sinclair share ideally is suitable for design questions questions for which there are multiple answers questions for which students need to evaluate the solutions for which they can use the same way of the other questions for which students can use the same way of the other questions for which students can use the same way The series game would have to be done as a homework or you know as an assignment or a lab type of an activity. So again depending upon the goal, you could construct an activity for that particular purpose. Alluri Institute. Sir, when students are introduced to this kind of think-pair-share activities which is not a regular classwork phenomenon, lot of students exhibit inertia to participate in it. So are there any methods to overcome this kind of inertia among the students? Okay, so the question is how to overcome inertia among the students. So one thing that the instructor should do is not to panic if nothing is happening in the classroom. So it's okay if there is uncomfortable silence for one or two minutes. Let that discomfort be there and you will find that the students will start participating. So the ideal thing to do will be to just say okay this is the thing-face question all of you need to do. So this is the pair-face question all of you need to now discuss with your neighbor and walk around gently and casual people into participating. So that usually works and once a small group starts participating then you will find that the entire class is also participating with each other. Okay, Sri Buddha College. Sir, can you have a combination of two or more topics while coming in this TPS activity so it will be much more effective. Can we, how can we cover the syllabus and can we have a combination of topics for these activities. See for the first question it only appears that we are spending a lot of time on the activity. So what you will actually find is that students don't need so much help for the advanced topic once you have got them to do some active learning in the basic topics. So what I routinely find in my classes is that the advanced topics it's possible for you to do the advanced topics in fact because a lot of the questions are driven by the students themselves and in fact you will find that the syllabus actually gets covered so to speak earlier than what would happen if we were to simply do lecturing in the classroom. Coming to the second question of how do we set up, can we combine topics to set up TPS activities? The answer is yes. So depending upon what the goal is, so suppose you want students to take a couple of topics that you have already dealt with earlier and to combine the what they have learnt from that in order to come up with a you know solution for a particular problem then yes definitely you can construct activities which combine multiple topics. Yes. What you have just discussed you see think here and share, knowing that the answer to point out you see the first point is that you see environment if I compare to the last 50 years it has been greatly changed okay based on the technical education.  So what you have actually given the stress in that three point that in here and share you see but I think that is not enough to the present context the thing is it is to be as a whole to be thought of how India that how best this family are oriented so that actually real north of strain is removed because only then they by themselves will be attentive and listening to that what an instructor is supposed to do. See all I will say at this point is that when we look at what was important in the 20th century what was important in the 20th century was information so and those teachers who had the information because information was hard to find okay. So we had to have access to the books we had to find access to the journals and so on and so those teachers who had access to that information and who had that information they were at a premium and that is why the lecturing model was effective in the 20th century because students did not have access to the information and the teacher was the only way for them to get that information. On the other hand in the 20th century today 21st century what we find is that the students have easy access to the information so information is really no longer the key driver for teachers usefulness in a classroom okay. So the important thing now is that the teacher has to ensure that the students are able to apply their learning and that's why it's important for us to move from simply transmitting information in the form of lectures to getting students to do some active learning activities in their classroom and help them to ensure that they have understood that material well enough to apply them so a lot of problem-solving activities is what we need to move on to now okay Vidya Pratishtan. Morning sir my question is whether such TPS activities applicable for theoretical subjects like human-computer interaction usability or management information science it is out okay. So the question is TPS applicable for topics like HCI and MIS so the answer here is that neither of these topics need to be dealt with in a theoretical manner. So for example in HCI you could easily give design questions of you know you could pose a scenario and you could ask students to design the interface for that. In MIS once again you could pose a scenario where there are you know there are there are requirements of a particular college or a particular company and you could ask students to design MIS solution for that so it the notion that it's a theoretical subject is a notion only in our heads as instructors yeah as the moment we move away from that and we construct scenarios which can facilitate students to learn the subject you will find that it's possible to do all kinds of active learning in even seemingly theoretical subjects. Why should I institute? Sir my question is how does TPS can be effective when there is wide variation in standard of students in the class. Okay so the question is how can we use TPS effectively when there is wide variation in the standard of students in the class. See again here what we will find when you execute TPS is that you will find that sometimes students who know the subject are paired with students who don't know the subject and often you will find that students take an interest in teaching the other students. Okay so the TPS actually helps all the students so even if if there is a pair which is both of whom are high achievers you will find that they go deeper into the subject. If you find that if there is a pair one of whom is a high achiever and one of whom is a low achiever you will find that the high achiever is kind of tutoring the low achiever which is helpful and even in the case where you find if the pair is both of them are low achievers you will find that you know they will discover that okay there are these things that they don't know and they will ask other pairs. So essentially what happens is that even in the case of low achievers TPS helps them to identify that there are other people like me who don't know and therefore it reduces their inhibition to ask others and learn the subject. So irrespective of how your pairs get formed TPS will uniformly help to raise the level of learning in your classroom. At the time of teaching in a class we have a beloved student as well as the talented students. At the time what happens when we are concentrating upon a beloved student the talented students gets bored. So how to deal with such a situation? Once again there is no generic answer to this question of how to handle student diversity in a classroom. So what you could do is you could have different sets of problems. You could have advanced problems for advanced students to work on and or in the case of a TPS you could form the groups in such a way that the advanced students are tutoring the weaker students and that's the way you could handle these issues. All right. So if there are any further queries on TPS and so on feel free to post on Moodle and we will put up a combined FAQ type of answers for all the queries.


Hi, this is Dr. Dunn again. Just a few more minutes on another question that's come up on how to use the worksheet for the Lab 6 remix. This is that student name remix.rmd file. Remember at the top, we've got the yaml. That's the instructions for how to knit, generally. And it's behind these dashes to start. And there's some dashes down there. And that's all the yaml. You don't want to mess with except to put in your name, edit it for your name, and edit it for the date. Make sure you leave those quotations there. So I scroll on down, and what you should do, of course, is run the code chunks here. I'm going to, first of all, run the libraries and load those packages into the libraries that we need. And then now I can scroll on down. And I'm looking for here. Well, there's the, they're letting us load the data. So I'm going to ahead and load the data there, OK? Now you can see we've got that data object, that data frame over here in the environment. And we can expand it. You can see it says 1,000 observations of seven variables. First one is just an index. Then we've got the six variable with binary, male and female. It's a categorical variable, the character there. And then SAT verbal is a numerical. You can see numbers there. SAT math is numerical. SAT total is numerical. GPA high school is character or categorical. High, and I'm guessing low. And then the last variable is GPA physical year, FY. And that's numerical. So those are the variables that we have to choose from here. So save a copy local data. I think we've got that code in the rehearse you're going to use. I'm going to find a blank area here. And I'm just going to start typing in my project report. Tell you where to start that. Now I'm going to go back to the lab six, rehearse one. And our example that we're going to use is the two samples, two means. That starts here. You can see here, the first thing it says is explore the data, load the data. I want her to do that again. And what I usually do is just to copy that part. Control C, go back into my Cloud Control V to get that there. Now I'm going to insert my code chunk.  And then copy that code chunk. Go back to Cloud and paste it in. The reason you have to do it that way is if you just tried to copy this code chunk here, it won't give you a correct code chunk. So you've got to manually insert those. So you can see we're starting our report. And there you can run this again. If you want, it won't hurt. It's just going to, again, give us the SAT GPA that you were going to explore. And we'll continue on. Let's go back to the example here. We've done the explore data. The next thing it says is specify. And now here in the example, it says GPA is the response variable in sex to be the explanatory variable. What I want to do is copy this, Control C, and go back here into the Cloud Control V. And one of the things that I keep forgetting to do is I didn't copy down my question. So let's go back up here and find the question that we're going to use. We're going to use question one. So I'm just going to copy that, Control C, give it a copy down here where I'm working. And I'm going to insert that right there. Whoops, I didn't copy the whole thing. Let me go back and get that. So there's my research question copied down there. I'm using total SAT and then low and high GPA, which we saw over here would be the SAT total is how they identify that variable and then the GPA high school. And then if I go into my code, here you can see that's where I'm reading in that. I've got to put this next code chunk here. So I'm going to go ahead and insert a blank code chunk and then go back to the remix here and scroll down, find the mean and go back here to the specify code chunk 29, copy that. And then I'm going to go back to Cloud, paste that into my code 29. Now I've got that code copied in there before I've run it, I need to edit this. So we want the, back to my question up here, SAT total, so that's going to be my response variable and high school GPA is going to be the explanatory variable. So I'm going to just type that in, SAT total. And I guess I want to type that the way it's stored there. So that is a T underscore total response variable and GPA high school, GPA high school. So I've got that edited in there. And now I do the same thing down here. I want my SAT total to be my response variable, SAT underscore T-O-T-A-L, you can see it's offering it up. It's a function of the GPA high school and it's offering up high school, which is what I want. So that is my first specify. And so we would just continue on doing that, cocking in the code chunks and then editing them to put the right variables in there. Pretty straightforward, you've done this before. I hope this helps.