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Podcasts of University Lectures?
theslashdot asks: "I'm working at a major university in the US, and have been charged with posting pod-casts of class lectures on the internet. The problem is whether or not posting the videos would allow students to skip class and just download the lecture, instead. I guess the problem is trying to strike the right balance between allowing good students to take advantage of this resource, but discourage bad students from staying at home all the time and watching all the lectures right before the exam. So what methods can be used to provide these pod-casts for the students who actually attended class? In terms of when the lecture should be posted, what would be a good time-frame? Immediately after the class? 24 hours? One week? One class behind schedule?"
"In terms of trying to prevent this, here are some possible solutions I've come up with:
- Post the lecture with authentication based on the class list for those enrolled in the course, although this would not really discourage truancy.
- Post the lecture with authentication based on those who attended the class (student cards would have to be barcode-scanned at the beginning of class); this would prevent those who missed the class from downloading the lecture, but presumably they could receive a copy from a student who did attend the class. Additionally it would create a major hassle for all students to ensure that their attendance is registered.
- Post the lecture with a single password that the professor distributes to the class during the lecture. This would discourage students from missing the lecture, but likely those students missing class could simply obtain the password from another student who did attend the class."
- Post the lecture with authentication based on the class list for those enrolled in the course, although this would not really discourage truancy.
- Post the lecture with authentication based on those who attended the class (student cards would have to be barcode-scanned at the beginning of class); this would prevent those who missed the class from downloading the lecture, but presumably they could receive a copy from a student who did attend the class. Additionally it would create a major hassle for all students to ensure that their attendance is registered.
- Post the lecture with a single password that the professor distributes to the class during the lecture. This would discourage students from missing the lecture, but likely those students missing class could simply obtain the password from another student who did attend the class."
My VB teacher posts his ASAP, usually withing 24 hours. The school-wide rule is if you miss two weeks of class in a row or like 25% or something like that overall, you're booted from the class. That filters out all the lazy slackers that don't deserve degrees or jobs because they can't even take the effort to show up.
Also, use a lot of hand gestures and non-verbals so people will get the just of the lecture for review purposes but would still do poorly if they missed the original lecture.
now stop reading and go play Dance Dance Revolution!
A-fucking-men.
This would fix one of my biggest annoyances with my university: professors teaching Gen Ed-required classes that no-one really wants to be in (nor cares about in the least) at 8:00AM and 9:00AM *only*, every semester. These are truly lecture classes, where you would get *exactly* the same experience from watching the video, except that you could sleep in that extra hour or two.
As you can tell, I don't have too many gripes about my university, for something like that to even be an issue. Still, it'd be cool to have a solution.
There have been SO many classes where I could have skipped through the lecture videos, pausing every 5 minutes or so to make sure that the topic hasn't changed, then just done 30 minutes of web research on the topic, and been fine. Repeat for every exam, and only go to class for the exams. GREAT.
I'm thinking especially of "Intro to Psychology" and "World Religions", the former of which told me NOTHING that I hadn't learned by the end of high school (and much of it I'd learned in junior high science classes... but yet, most people in my class did poorly on the tests... WTF?) and the latter of which could be completely replaced with ~2 hours of reading Wikipedia.
Obviously, it'd be better if they'd either make the classes worthwhile (probably draw complains from people who don't care about the class because it's not part of their major, but damn, if you're paying for it it might as well teach you something) or not require that we take the classes at all, but video lectures online would be a decent alternative.
However, don't you think that professors have better things to do then to do roll call everyday? Besides, that may take up too much time in a large class.
As a univeristy lecturer, I can say that the response of the class affects the nature of the lecture. you look for signals to see if students 'get it' and you hone your presentation to that.
Allowing the student to observe the lecture without being observed reduces the quality of teaching and the quality of the leanring experience.
Attendance should be compulsory as it improve the quality.
I see lots of posts about why attendance shouldn't matter as long as students are learning the material. I completely agree. BUT what most people don't know is that attendance is required for state and federal funding. Even many private schools get funding from the government. For much of the money the schools must report on general class attendance. If fewer students go to classes the university gets less money. So there actually is reason (besides the education) that schools need high classroom attendance.
Developers: We can use your help.
We have been archiving IV courses for about three years and then making those lectures available via our learning platform. The faculty had the argument that it would encourage students to miss classes. After using it for one year, we polled the faculty and their attitude had changed. The good students were using it to reinforce the material covered in class and the attendance has not been an issue.
In our case, attendance policies were left up to the individual faculty member. We also record every IV class but the instructor has control over releasing the archive (by default all released) - they can turn off archives at the course level or by date. The institution gets to say it records all lectures but the faculty has control over students access.
If this is not already, it will be expected by students in the future.
A great many colleges and universities do allow general public access to their lectures. These mostly depend on the professor, as in the case of Professor Gerald Cizaldo at the College of St. Scholastica. His postcasts, from a wide variety of biology and physiology courses are available through his website (or this xml page).
Many more can be found at http://directory.edufeeds.com/
Disclaimer: While I don't attend classes at CSS (great acronym, eh?), I did work there this summer as part of an internship.
In this case, a podcast would be better. At least the student would have the chance to rewind parts of the lecture the student did not understand and review them until understood.
All data is speech. All speech is Free.
The reason you want people come to class is that good (even decent) professors react to their audience. While it's not practical in a 200 person class to answer every question during lecture, I (in my calculus teaching) am constantly monitoring the faces of those who are paying any attention at all. Do I need to give another example, or can I skip through this topic quickly and spend more time on the next?
Some could make the argument, I suppose, that since calculus doesn't change much, there should be some Platonic "Ideal Lecture" out there, and once that has been recorded, no lecture need ever be given again. However, the fact is that although calculus doesn't change, students do. The mathematical knowledge of entering students changes from quarter to quarter (the students who are "on track" typically need less review of the previous course's material), from year to year, and quite noticably from decade to decade.
Most professors do react to students, although it never occurs to them to let the students know that. This is a fundamental reason for having a human teacher as opposed to just books. Students who consistently do not attend class, or who attend without paying attention, are impairing the ability of the professor to do exactly this, and the class as a whole suffers.
--
Think! It ain't illegal yet!
George Clinton
Think! It ain't illegal yet!
George Clinton
Here's a great collection of links to lecture webcasts from Harvard, Princeton, Berkeley, Stanford, MIT and many more: http://internet-tv-search-engine-swicki.eurekster. com/online+lectures/
Yes. http://internet-tv-search-engine-swicki.eurekster. com/online+lectures/
I'd like to open a new threat where we could collect some more links to Uni podcasts/webcasts but I don't know how. (There must be many more out there from Europe, Asia, South America...) Could someone please open a "University Podcast/Webcast Collection" threat? Thanks!
I am a grad student at DePaul U. in Chicago. I also work a full-time day job. Online classes make my graduate education possible, and for the naysayers, the course material is identical to the in-class. The online courses are actually webcasts of 'live' classes posted the day after the class occurs, and exams must be taken on-site or proctored. .wmv files and a link to one of the free tools (e.g., iSquint) that will convert .wmv to Quicktime. Podcasts of the audio are awesome - watching webcasts is pretty uselss, since the stream is usually so low-res that it is impossible to read the blackboard/whiteboard. Speaking of which, do not waste resources on a fancy 'collaboration tool' wherein the class video is embedded in a Java applet that also shows the whiteboard contents in detail - nice idea, but usually the video quality still sucks, and students are then stuck watching via a browser. Plus, poor handwriting on a low-res whiteboard equals illegible scribbles on half the screen. I prefer printing the class notes and following along a podcast - works great, and I can take notes on my hardcopy. This works only if your professor is organized enough to have good lecture notes - which s/he should, especally at the graduate level.
... mostly...)
Online classes are great for motivated students but terrible for non-motivated students. When it comes to class interaction, especially for technical classes, I prefer online classes with a good discussion board / wiki. Offer the classes as soon as they are done, and don't encumber them (I have to jump through hoops to get my classes into a format I can watch, since DePaul only supports IE on a PC for watching classes). If you have the server space, put them out there in Quicktime and Windows Media format, or if you must, post unencumbered
Copyright should be a nonissue, since unless you are registered, you can't get the degree, which is the whole point of the class. If someone wants to download your content to see what the classes are all about, let them - free promotion.
Also, make texts available online. College bookstores are, in my experience, a complete ripoff, and don't even tell me how the huge margins support student programs - that's crap. At DePaul, the student bookstore is a Barnes & Noble, and they gouge the hell out of us to the point where most of the faculty tell students point-blank, "don't buy your books at the bookstore, go to (insert recommended online discount textbook supplier)."
For liberal arts classes, however, all bets are off - just post the notes and forget the lectures. No one cares anyway. (kidding!!!