podcasting - coursecasting

Purdue University (Indiana) has updated their system for distributing lectures to students, providing mp3 versions of introductory course lectures to students. Benefits include
* provides a way for instructors to evaluate themselves
* students can review lecture materials later in the course
* assists auditory and ESL learners

Purdue has 55 classrooms capable of recording podcasts in 27 buildings across campus. They also have 17 other capable rooms (e.g. conference rooms) for recording other seminars like graduate student workshops. Their process is mostly automated. The lecture is captured through a microphone and open phone line which transmit the lecture to realtime mp3 recorders. The mp3 recorders push the lectures to software that processes and uploads 3 file types (Real Audio stream, Windows Media stream, mp3 file) to the server. Lecture podcasts are typically up within five minutes of a class ending.

Also noted recently - While universities are increasingly offering hundreds of podcast courses (allowing professors teaching a tech-savvy generation to combat student boredom by freeing them to review material at their own pace), in some cases, the tactic backfires. A podcasting professor at the University of California at Berkeley recently pointed out that only about 20 of his 200 students regularly showed up for class. Is that just the podcasts? Where is this heading? Maybe professors/instructors/lecturers will need to look at how they use the lecture threatre time…. and how they supplement face-to-face with online and podcast resources.