I just lead a small discussion for a few faculty and instructional technologists today over lunch about lecture capture what what would need to happen to get people to try it at Williams. I lead off with a quick slide show to define some terms and to provide some seed questions, then we just talked for about 30 minutes.  Here are the major points I took away from it:

• to make this work we need some way of recording stuff written on a board (we could maybe emulate that with a tablet, sympodium, or smart board, but that’s not ideal)
• the audio is important, but not the video of the talking head; point the camera somewhere more useful
• look into dual-camera systems instead of just camera-projector systems
• the non-fixed installation is better thought of as temporary / movable rather than truly mobile / portable (and, in general we need to find out more about the movable systems)
• some faculty are probably willing to try it at some point
• it might be a really good fit with tutorials for letting different sections see each other’s discussions
• the ability to jump to / find particular points in a lecture is very important and maybe needs to be improved
• some concern about students spending limited time re-listening to lectures rather than doing other course work

One of the big selling points seemed to be that people at other institutions were trying it and finding it useful. Here’s a set of links to some public info I found about that:

• http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/ATC/Collaboratory/News/lecturecapturing.html
• http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/ATC/Collaboratory/News/NERCOMPHandout.pdf
• http://www.echo360.tv/customers/umass.asp
• http://campustechnology.com/articles/52017/
• http://www.dartmouth.edu/~create/
• http://edc.carleton.ca/blog/index.php/2008/02/12/enhanced-lecture-podcasting-benefits/
• http://insidedigitalmedia.com/how-students-use-video-recordings-of-college-lectures-part-1-of-2/
• http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Quarterly/LectureCaptureWhatCanBeAu/40028

The short summary of all those is:

• faculty and students who have tried a lecture capture system have liked it.
• students self-report that it helps their learning
• it has a positive impact on student grades, primarily helping the C and D students (it’s especially good for those who want to learn but are having difficulty with the material)
• there’s little solid data about attendance rates, but anecdotal observation and self-reporting suggest that, counter-intuitively, it’s largely or completely unaffected

Due to a relatively recent security hole in Adobe’s Flash Server 2 we had to upgrade the one driving our Echo360 (nee Apreso) system. It was a little scary to contemplate, but in fact went smoothly.

1. Downloaded the latest version Flash Media Streaming Server 3  from Adobe - Flashmedia3_Int_Strm_ALP.zip - it was a bit disconcerting since this is about 160 megs and the previous version was about 8, but it’s OK.
2. Ran a full back up of the host machine
3. Unpacked the FMS zip file
4. Ran the installer, accepting all the default choices and creating the same admin account and password as for the previous version (I don’t know if that’s strictly necessary, but seemed easiest)
5. Edited the server configuration file (C:\Program Files\Adobe\Flash Media Server 3\conf\fms.ini) to set the VHOST.APPSDIR property (our Echo360 streaming folder is on a different partition from the FMS install)
6. Restarted the FMS
7. Tested a previously recorded presentation and it worked.
8. Haven’t yet tried recording a new presentation, but given that the existing ones worked fine I don’t foresee any difficulties

I’m attending the 2008 NERCOMP conference in Providence, RI. This annual get-together provides networking with peers at other institutions, professional development in various presentations, and a sizable vendor fair. [My thoughts and comments are enclosed in square brackets.]

The first session I attended was about using WordPress to support learning initiatives. The presenters were Ken Panko (Sr Instructional Technologist), and Randy Rode (School of Drama IT Director) - both from Yale.

WordPress is well known as a blogging tool, but also works well as a light-weight content management tool. The big advantages of WordPress are that it’s fast (you can literally get a new install up and running in 5 to 10 minutes), it’s flexible (with themes to change the look and feel, plugins to extend functionality, and general page authoring as well as specific blog authoring), it’s cheap (the $$ cost is free, since the software is open source, and the actual support needed is minimal - the software tends to work well out of the box), and there are lots of options for running it (windows server, unix/linux/mac server, remotely hosted).

There are some pitfalls to WordPress as well. Probably the largest is straightforward security concerns (see http://secunia.com/search/?search=wordpress). Security holes get patched fairly quickly, but then someone needs to make sure all the installs are actually up to date (though there’s now an Automatic Update plugin that helps with that, or even manages it entirely). The other issue that comes up a lot is spam. There are two good tools to deal with that. The first is the Akismet plugin, which does content based filtering. The second is a configuration option that allows user filtering - WordPress can be set to make the first comment from any particular person require vetting by an administrator, after which that user is OK-ed to post future comments with out oversight.

[It's worth noting that this entire talk focused on multiple instances of installing the word press system. Another option is WordPressMU, which is a single install that supports many blogs. WPMU is what Williams uses to run http://blogs.williams.edu, largely because of the central management features and the single-point-of-maintenance. However, if we were to use WordPress as a CMS we'd probably go with a separate instance. The latter would allow more customization for the particular application, and would have a more logical address.]

They note that it is possible use htaccess files or some other authentication system to limit access to a WordPress blog, but generally they leave them accessible to the general public. There is an intellectual property issue associated with using blogs in a class. Students sign some sort of IP release thing indicating they know that posts will be public. [Details on that were not available, but would be interesting. Perhaps someone who has a copy of the agreement could post it?]

They’ve found WordPress very appropriate and useful for rapid, light weight, perpetual-beta projects. For example a 6-12 month project probably would use some other system (they use joomla as their general CMS), while a project with 1-2 weeks lead time would probably be done using WordPress. The WordPress UI is pretty good, requiring little to no user training. It’s easy to make changes, allowing feedback to be incorporated quickly and easily as the system is used. After that particular project or class is over, it becomes something of an archive (which has its own plusses and minuses, but the talk didn’t really get into that.

To finish they ran through four examples that demonstrated different approaches / uses. The first two were covered by Ken:

Online Text Analysis - Shakespeare Analysis Course
- arose through talking to a faculty member whose office was next door [This is a great example of serendipitous project creation. While there are certainly some advantages to a central IT building, I think we miss a lot of opportunities by not being more fully integrated with the rest of the campus]
- uses the CommentPress theme, which allows line-by-line commenting
- For this class the blog is hidden behind a central authentication system, which deals with most (all?) of the general spam problems.
- MIT has a full shakespeare text archive available, which this course uses (though it looks like MIT may just link to another source, at least in that course)
- There’s a plugin called Ajax Edit Comments that lets users edit their own comments. It has a time window option (so e.g. comments can be made and edited an hour or two after a class discussion, but are fixed thereafter).
- Total time to from project idea to implementation: 11/1 - 1/23, with a big break between. Really, mainly about 4 hours of actual work during Jan 2 to Jan 23. One very nice thing, the sponsor was able to check it out from Holland since it’s on-line.

Yale summer caberet
- student run project set up as a content management system.
- NOTE: site is no longer live since the summer is over.
- Ken set it up and then let the students do whatever they want. Essentially, he volunteered his time, so didn’t want much int he way of support issues/ time.
- Interesting note: plugins are used on pages as well as blog posts, which allows one to use a pretty interactive system.
- Created a custom theme - 6-12 hours of work (usual web site development stuff - messing with CSS, image creation, etc.)

Then Randy took the stage. He talks very quickly and ran very quickly through his slides. Partly just his nature, I think, but he was also pressed for time and was trying to fit in everything. He did a good job, but my notes on his stuff are a little sparse.

One example is a site set up for an architecture course. Students made posts instead of writing papers, which means the posts are LONG. He used the evermore plugin to make the blog more readable. There was a question later about metrics of student evaluation, and turns out that before the course started Randy and the professor got together to develop a rubric for good blog posts, which was then given to the students at the start of the course. Evaluating the posts in this case wasn’t much different from evaluating any other student papers [it'd be nice to get a copy of that rubric....]. This site was (is?) open to the public, and some of the student work ended up being linked to from the architects’ sites.

Randy runs through a quick demo of the WP back end. He also shows us a nice plugin, the anarchy media player, which plays many, many different kinds of media. In general, WP plays very well with multi-media (much better than Sakai and other LMS and CMS). Since posts can be tagged, and since WP can generate RSS feeds automatically based on tags, this makes it a great way to very easily produce a podcast (which can then be subscribed to as normal in iTunes or any other podcatcher). Also, the audio can be played directly from the web page (via anarchy) and and intermixed with non-audio posts (using tags to separate out the audio ones).

Randy has a few pages of How to Use WordPress that he includes in every install he does, but he finds that students pick it up very quickly regardless. A number of students respond (paraphrasing) “it’s just like setting up my facebook page”. [to my mind the good UI is the single strongest selling point of WP]

There wasn’t really much time for questions at the end, so that was pretty much it.

There’s a bit more info on the Educause NERCOMP 2008 blog, and there’s a PDF of the slide show on Randy’s blog.

We (Williams) have been experimenting lately with ‘automated’ classroom lecture capture, using the Echo360 tools. Lecture capture in this case means recording audio, video, and projected data of a presentation. The word automated is in quotes because it’s only automated from the perspective of the presenter. This system, like most (all?) others actually requires a fair bit of human work on the back end to make it seem automatic to the person actually giving the lecture. A person has to manually schedule the event and send that schedule to the machines that do the actual recording.

The Echo360 system has actually worked well, better than expected even. There are a lot of pieces in the process, and thus a lot of points of potential failure. Capture a single presentation involves these component all working correctly on their own and in conjunction with each other:

• manual scheduling (software and process)
• wireless, clip-on microphone
• video camera
• capture station - a special computer that does the actual recording and sends the result to the content manager
• content manager - a special server that manages the capture lectures
• Blackboard - our course system, on which recorded lectures are posted

That’s all in addition to the standard classroom technology (projector, speakers, lectern computers, media players). Even given all that, it works reliably fairly well for us (though it took a couple of months to smooth out the bugs). We’re now at a point where if we’re told someone wants to record a presentation in one of our three equipped rooms, we can make it happen and the resulting recording will posted to the appropriate course in Blackboard. From a technical standpoint, classroom capture is a success.

The only real problem we have with it at the moment is that none of the professors actually want to use it. There are three main objections that are raised. First, professors are concerned that if the lectures are recorded then students won’t bother actually showing up to class. Second, professors don’t like the idea of being recorded - it makes them uncomfortable. Third, professors don’t want to change their lecture styles to work better with the recording system - the video camera has a fixed mount, which means if the presenter wants to be recorded there’s a limited area they can use, and the camera is of a limited enough resolution that text written on a board is difficult to read (info sent through the projector works fine, but not everyone uses that).

I have no doubt that over time people will decide they do want to take advantage of this kind of system. Experience at other schools suggests that students, on the whole, do still come to class, and also get a lot out of the recordings. It’s especially useful in situations where the student is still struggling with the language being used to teach (either a foreign student, or a class taught in a different language). It’s also a handy way an instructor can see themselves teach - it provides a useful, objective feedback mechanism.

If anyone else is thinking about implementing such a system my advice is to get people committed to using it, at least some of the time, before going through the time and effort and expense of installing it. If anyone’s interested I can provide more detailed information about our install process and the parts and skills needed to make it all work.

During the NITLE conference I brainstormed a bit about how to get people to make more and better use of our LMS. This is a collection of things that came to me over the course of the first day.

1. There are examplary users of the system already - the early adopters, the people who got really excited about one feature or another. Make them superstars. Get them to give talks on campus. Copy their stuff to use as examples. Reference them in our own presentations. These people are both the models for everyone else and the seeds of a user community.
2. People need to be able to see what others are doing, and not doing. Partly it’s about competition, partly it’s about learning by example, and partly it’s about peer pressure / shame.
   1. This is tricky since most LMS are closed systems by default. Perhaps automatically create a guest user for each course, though that has its own set of problems. Need to think more on this…
3. Feed back
   1. Add relevant questions to the course evaluation forms. Need to find out who’s in charge of changes to those forms and start working on them.
   2. Create an anonymous feedback form for courses in the LMS. Probably unrealistic to have it used by default, but make it available for instructors to activate if they so desire. Basically, it’s a way for users (students) to make suggestions to admins (instructors). Hmmm… probably call it a suggestion form rather than a feedback form.
4. Get students to demand it. Run lunches/events for students where some with good LMS experiences can talk about why it was so great. Some events just for other students, some for students and instructors. If the students want it, the instructors will comply.
5. Initiate an on-going seminar/discussion series for instructors about LMS pedagogy and technique. Bribe with food as needed. Set it going and then step back as much as possible.
6. Make courses active/available by default. We need to signal the institutional goal that the LMS will be used and that our students expect it.
7. For specific classes, run a discussion with the professor, the students, and one or more itech people to figure out the best ways to use the LMS for that course. Don’t have the resources to do this with everyone at once, but as we can it’d be a good thing to do on the first day of classes when things are usually pretty admin-oriented anyway.
   1. We can’t just give people a tool and expect everything will work out - we have to teach them how to use it.
8. Keep and publicize top 10 lists for good uses and bad uses of the LMS. Keep them general and mostly with out attribution (though maybe reference some examples on the good list - see point 1).