October 20, 2005
Students get class lectures on demand, thanks to podcasts
A pilot project now under way is a big step toward the goal of “anytime, anywhere learning.” Classroom Support Services is running a pilot project to podcast lectures in three Kane Hall classes.
Lectures in Kane have often been videotaped for student viewing, but that means the student must go to the library to check out the video and view it there. With podcasts the audio portion of the lecture can be downloaded to a personal listening device such as an iPod and listened to anywhere. Moreover, the new technology allows students to subscribe to lectures and have them automatically downloaded to their computers.
The new technology isn’t designed to exempt students from coming to class, but rather to allow them to hear lectures they had to miss or to re-listen to lectures when studying class material.
And the new recording and distribution method is a good thing for Classroom Support Services too, according to project director David Aldrich. “Videotaping a lecture uses a lot of resources,” he said. “You have to have someone present to tape the lecture, then do post-production.”
Some of the new class recordings, in contrast, are done with a small MP3 recorder that is plugged into the lecture hall’s PA system at the beginning of class, and then returned to CSS at the end of class to be uploaded to the web. CSS is also using a Barix Instreamer, which is a device that is installed in the lecture hall and managed remotely. The Instreamer can automatically transmit the class lectures online as a live audio broadcast, or it can send the audio stream to be archived on the media server for students to access after the class.
Students in the designated classes subscribe to the lectures by going to the CSS Web site and copying a link into their iTunes or a similar program. After that, the program automatically picks up each lecture after it’s recorded. The student simply goes to his or her personal computer, opens iTunes and either listens to it there or transfers it to a portable MP3 player.
CSS has a separate pilot project involving video streaming, a technology that allows students to view a lecture on the Web via their personal computers rather than having to go to the library to watch a videotape. But video streaming still requires a staff member to do the recording and some post-production, and the video takes up an enormous amount of room on a server.
Because podcasting is easier to support, Aldrich said, it would ultimately be possible for many more classes to have it than could be served with either videotaping or video streaming. He said one of the universities CSS researched before starting the pilot project had 64 classes using podcasts.
Students in the three UW classes offering podcasts this quarter seem to have taken to the new technology. As of the third week of the quarter, podcasts of the lectures had been downloaded 719 times.
For one of the participating professors — oceanography’s Richard Strickland — podcasts are not a new thing; he’s been recording his own lectures and posting them online as MP3 files via the class Web page for two years. Assuming the pilot project is successful, he’ll be relieved of that job.
The other two professors — Matthew Barreto of political science and Douglass Merrell of the Comparative History of Ideas — are newer to the technology, and both said they are pleased with how things are going.
Merrell reported that a friend of the person who had set up the podcasts contacted him after sampling the service. “She is not a student enrolled in the course, but she has since become interested in auditing it through the podcasts and has asked me about the course readings as well as other related texts,” he said. “That’s very gratifying.”
Barreto said the podcasts are a useful tool for him as well as the students because “I can replay portions of the lecture and hear how it was delivered.”
Right now, CSS is handling all aspects of the podcasts for the instructors. “We started the pilot program with the assumption that instructors are in the business of teaching, and having to juggle one more piece of technology for the sake of a pedagogical experiment would only add to the burden they face in managing their classes,” Aldrich said. “However, we’re also considering ways to accommodate instructors who want more direct control over their podcasts. CSS has been developing a software interface for them.”
Although the quarter is far from over, CSS is pleased enough with how things are going that they plan to ask the Academic Technology Advisory Committee for funds to purchase equipment so they can expand the podcasts beyond Kane Hall.
“Podcasting is perhaps the most exciting innovation to come along in the teaching and learning environment since I’ve been working at the University,” Aldrich said.
