Captured lectures and captivated students

There is a growing trend to capture live university lectures and deliver them to students on the web. Some instructors fear students won't come to class if captured lectures are available later on. Others don't care as long as students learn the material.

I was just reading an article about classroom attendance in courses with podcasted lectures. Although it was small-scale study, they found that "the large majority would continue to attend lectures due to a number of reasons, and they viewed the recorded material as having a different role in their learning experience." Students will continue to attend lectures for interaction and questions. For the majority of students the captured lectures are a safety net and/or a tool for reviewing material.

I encourage everyone to consider lecture capture as a way to help your students succeed. With OAA and the fantastic network support crew leading the charge, the SVM has invested in software that will make capturing your lectures as easy as possible.

Wiki for Learn@UW

At the Annual Distance Education conference last week. I talked to the representative from Desire2Learn, known as Learn@UW around here. I asked when they are going to have a wiki tool. Apparently it's coming in October. This is good news. I'd like to see how we can use wikis in group projects here in the SVM.

Blogging for learning

Want to start learning about blogging in higher education? Check out these:

EduBlog Insights: http://anne.teachesme.com/2006/05/31/blogs-and-pedagogy/

Weblogs in Higher Education: http://www.mchron.net/site/edublog.php