January 24, 2008
Move over, podcasting — screencasting’s a growing trend
Podcasting is so yesterday, pedagogically speaking. Today it’s all about video, or as the cognoscenti call it here, screencasting. And as with the earlier generation of audio production, the UW is in the forefront of providing instructors with the tools to make video happen without lifting a finger.
If an instructor is teaching in a room equipped for screencasting, all that is necessary is to hook up the laptop to the video projector and turn on the microphone. When the class period ends, the recording stops. Of course, instructors need to make students aware that they are being recorded. But it’s just that simple. To view a sample screencast, visit online here.
Magically, about 15 minutes after class, the lecture, complete with slides or other visual support material, is on the Web with its own URL. If audio alone is used, the resultant file appears on the Web in two or three minutes.
Although online video has been piloted for just over two years, the balance between podcasting and video is already shifting. Students in a biochemistry class petitioned to move to a room that supported video. One instructor who had been an early adopter of podcasting was strongly encouraged by his students to move to screencasting.
Last quarter, Classroom Support Services served 2.5 terabytes (that’s 2,500 gigabytes) of new media content to students per month. The new media team predicts that quantity will double this quarter, driven by more classrooms that are equipped for media and more instructors who take advantage of the technology.
With this ease of moving from a contained classroom to immediate availability on the Web comes a few challenges, not the least of which is dealing with copyright issues. To help instructors navigate in these unfamiliar waters, Catalyst is hosting a presentation, Podcasting, New Media & the Law, from 3 to 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 31, in Kane Hall’s Walker-Ames Room. It will be led by Colette Vogele, attorney and co-author of the Podcasting Legal Guide: Rules for the Revolution.
“Before an instructor can podcast or screencast a class, we ask if any copyrighted third-party materials will be used,” says David Aldrich, assistant director of Classroom Support Services. “Based on the answer, we determine the degree of openness that may be appropriate, ranging from members of the class only to the entire world.”
Typically, classroom content is limited only to students who are registered for the class, and technical fixes are put in place to prevent secondary distribution beyond this group. UW policy is that instructors own the copyright on the material they create for their classes, so they get to decide how it is used.
But the situation can quickly become murky if the instructor uses copyrighted material that comes from another source (and this could include material from textbooks or commercially available music). The doctrine of “fair use” comes into play, and deciding what uses are permitted under law is often far from straightforward.
Classroom Support Services now has 28 rooms equipped for podcasting alone and 11 equipped for screencasting. Despite the preponderance of podcasting rooms, Aldrich and his team — senior computing specialist Tim Batzel and computer support analyst Bradley Bell — predict that the demand for video will surpass audio very shortly. Outfitting a room for video costs just $1,500, while the cost for podcasting is just $400. Still, there are limitations. Some buildings are just not wired well enough to meet the demands of large digital files. For example, transmitting a lecture’s file from Gowen Hall to one of the dedicated servers can take up to four hours.
The early adopters of screencasting are concentrated in a few departments — psychology, chemistry, and biochemistry — but biology right now is far and away the trendsetter. In autumn quarter, six classes were screencast with 157 individual recordings that were viewed a total of 36,000 times.
While some instructors fear that having complete lectures available on the Web will deter in-person attendance, actual experience is mixed. Some instructors have seen attendance drop, while many have seen no change at all.
“We view the screencasts and podcasts as reinforcement,” says Aldrich. The experience with screencasting is striking: Downloads begin almost immediately after the content is posted, and the vast majority of those downloads are by students who attended class. Typically, they review the entire lecture, not just segments. In addition, many students are watching (or listening to) the lecture multiple times. In one chemistry class, the instructor calculated that nearly 10 percent of students were using screencasting.
“This is serious student engagement,” notes Aldrich.
Student use of new media has confounded predictions. “Initially, we pursued a model that would deliver course material anytime, anywhere,” Aldrich says, “but what we’re seeing is that students are watching lectures at their desks, so that they can follow the material in their textbook in a study environment. At some point, the mobile market may be important, but not yet.”
The UW was one of the first universities to provide podcasting in a systematic way across the University, and it is among the leaders in automated screencasting. Aldrich regularly receives calls and e-mails from universities around the world, and the office’s wiki, which describes the technology and software in detail, is a much visited site.
The equipment to make screencasting possible is available off the shelf. The magic was in the software scripting, in which computer support analyst Bell took the lead, that linked together signals from the camera and laptop to produce an integrated presentation without human intervention.
So far, only large lecture halls have been equipped for podcasting and screencasting. “We don’t know if screencasting will lend itself to presentations in, say, a 30-person classroom,” says Aldrich. “If so, then there will be lots of potential for expansion.”
Aldrich predicts the “next big thing” in new media will be an explosion in student-generated content. It’s pretty clear to him that expectations have changed; what used to be a do-it-yourself medium is becoming professionalized. He remarked that attendance at the annual New Media Expo has begun to shift from young people in jeans to older people — and most noticeably, attorneys — in suits.
