Audio Recordings of Lectures as an E-Learning Resource Jim Balfour – SBE

Overview Why Now? Why bother? The Downside! The Process Pull of Push? Student Reaction Conclusion

Why now? what’s changed? In a word – Technology Personal music players (e.g. iPods) allow digital audio to played anywhere, any time Consumer electronics make recording audio cheap and easy Free (or almost free) audio editing software makes it quick and easy to ‘chunk-up’ a recording VLEs, LMSs, etc make audio delivery over the web accessible to anyone with a web connection

Advantage to students when A lecture is missed English is not the first language Baffled first time through Annotating lecture notes after the ‘event’ Attempting tutorial questions/revision Engaged in distance and/or part-time learning Suffering from some special need (e.g. impaired hearing)

Advantages for staff Professional Development Student engagement Encourages independent learning Less ‘knocks on the door’ Big potential for distance learning delivery Lower failure rates? It’s sustainable!

The Downside! More technology Staff time Hardware costs Software costs Might ‘encourage’ students to miss lectures

Record lecture (128 kbs) Move file from MP3 player to PC Save files from WavePad files as 24 kbs MP3s ‘Chunk-up’ audio file using WavePad Upload 24 kbs MP3 files to VLE The Process Click boxes for Additional slides

Pull or Push? Pull relies on students downloading (or streaming) the audio files Push (or Podcasting) requires Podcasting software on the student’s computer that will automatically download new content from a Podcast server

Results of Questionnaire Survey 2 out of 3 students responded The resource was not universally used (55%) Many who did not use the resource thought it would have helped them to learn (40%) The audio files were found to be Useful (3) on a scale Not Useful at All (1) to Extremely Useful (5) No measurable difference in exam performance between listeners and non-listeners The ‘freshness’ of the audio files is regarded as important

Total Learning Enhancement Cost of Production and Delivery Conclusions Making audio recording of lectures available to students is now easy, quick and inexpensive The contribution to student learning made by the files justifies the effort of producing them, i.e. they have a high Value Added Ratio Value Added Ratio =

Podcast Your Lectures Jim Balfour – SBE

Mp3 Player

WavePad

MP3 Player Software

Saving as 24 kbs MP3

Upload to VLE