Podcasting Initiatives BOF

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Last updated: Dec 10, 2007Version comment
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Examples of course podcasts and case studies: the possibilities of podcasting

Notes recorded by Roger Henry 

Possible points of discussion

What types of content are being podcast?

  • Coursecasts: recording of entire lectures
  • Content introduction: little podcast that introduces a topic in a weekly class
  • Weekly feedback: cheap and dirty follow up on the activities that have occured during the last week
  • Guest speakers: recording of a once occuring event
  • Interviews with experts
  • Interviews with students: getting a sense of what a member of the class thinks about a topic (something relevant or not to its prior experiences)
  • Cultural events: music concerts, art and craft showcases
  • Virtual tours: commented orientation tours, museum tours
  • Assignments: a professor giving guidelines and expectations on a specific class project
  • User created: students publishing their work online in a podcast format
  • Exam preparation Q&A: Series of questions and answers in audio and/or screen sequence format
  • Conference recording: like the Sakai conference could be recorded and published online, to see what your missing from breakout sessions (wink)

Are there best practices emerging?

  • Recording entire lecture is generally frowned on: better to use for meaningful snippets, etc.
  • One prof at IU asks students to work in pairs to record their own understanding of the previous lecture's concepts.
  • Recording interviews with experts usually makes interesting radio-type podcasts.
  • Using a template with a constant intro/extro and copyright statement can help build a professional sounding podcast while making the life easier for faculty members.

What hardware / software do you recommend?

  • m-audio microtrack 24-96 records directly in mp3 format to a flash card.  Cost about $400.00, but quality is top-notch.
  • Olympus's voice recorders - allows recording WAV, but very cost-effective.
  • A simple phone jack helps grab phone interviews. RadioShack - About $20. Must be used with a recorder.

What research is being done on the effectiveness of podcasting in teaching and learning?

What about the production quality of the podcasts themselves?

  • We should inform our users how to get a quality sound and how to set up a video camera to get quality image.
  • We should focus on screencasting rather then videocasting, a talking head being not really interesting.
  • Video should be used to demonstrate motor skills or highly-visual topics.
  • Podcasts should stay short (under 20 minutes). Content should be chuncked, or cued within a loarge file for better playback experience.

What is the value of video casting?  Do we have value added by introducing video?  Is there something more innovative than just putting the lecture online?

How about bringing in experts? 

  • Vidcast would provide 'instant access' to experts in the field.
  • Should be done in a radio-like format. Could include a panel.

Anybody doing slide-shows timed with audio?

  • IN IUPUI COP, nobody is using this yet. 
  • But one prof at IUPUI is looking for ways to incorporate snippets of video, providing some kind of enhanced experience for students.
  • LecShare is really good and cheap to do just that.
  • The College of Business (FSA) at Laval University (Quebec City, Canada) is doing audio only with screenshots. Very low bandwith and efficient system.

How are students supported in the creation of their podcasts?

  • Local IUPUI computing centers provide support for students, copying the physical layout of the faculty support space.
    ITTE offers training in audio recording for podcasting.
    We use Garage Band, Audacity, SoundForge.
    We use Camtasia and Captivate for teaching process.
  • At Delaware, we have a Student Multimedia Design Center within the library. http://www.udel.edu/smdc/

Comment on Captivate:

  • evaluated as very good for walk-through of tasks etc.
  • Better used by experts. Good for advanced features.

Camtasia:

  • easy to use; workable as a video editing; geared for shorter things.

Comments on WEbcast from UC Berkeley

Completely automated system, meant to be long, ot short.
Haven't yet explored the advantages to faculty vs student -produced content.

Admin functions in podcast tool in Sakai - difficulty managing large amount of content or many items.
Difficulty in manipulating stuff manually, but they're (Berkley) switching to automation.
Methods for automatic timings, trimmings, coding, etc.
Discussed extending admin interface to make it more usable for instructors.

Ability to annotate podcast entries,which would give added value.  There are tools out there that allow this, but not right now in sakai.
Possiblity of student-created podcasts being added to e-portfolios.

Dropping the live broadcast of courses, though the fact that you're able to view something live can be useful, given the context (advertising of university?)
But for EVENTS, they will maintain the capability for live netcasts.
Who is the audience for those events?
Depends on the event - ex-president? [at IU,live webcast of entire opera]

U-virginia
Faculty member developing site where students take HIS podcasts, and re-engineer them,mash up, then resubmit, having them connected somehow to the original,and track the evolution of the original.  Part of evaluation, students rate each other's submissions, thereby raising the quality of the podcasts, both in terms of content and quality.

At IU we have high-end equipment for check-out, and we provide support, training and help, so that they can start with higher quality of contant.

Do students want to use their mobile device to learn?
Very engaging question.
"Students' laptop is their mobile device."

Podcasts pushed to ITunesU, but students do not go there

Question of accessibility - how easy is it to make these accessible?

  • Garage band offers the possibility of attaching a transcript of the podcast;
    at IU, accessibility office will product transcript as needed.
  • LecShare software integrates captions from PowerPoint notes. 


Share resources

Please post links to resources for academic podcasting with a brief description

Podcasting Initiatives at Indiana University, 8th Sakai Conference, Newport Beach, CA, USA 3-7 Dec 2007

TLTC web page on Podcasting for Instruction
Teaching and Learning Technologies Centers, Indiana University-Bloomington
links to information on software for podcast recording and editing, and to presentations at the center

Screen and Audio Capture Report - Mathieu Plourde, University of Delaware: http://copland.udel.edu/~mathieu/sc/
A report on different software products for screen capture and PowerPoint conversion with audio.