After reading through Jen’s post on lecture capture from a staff perspective, I’ve been hit with it from a student perspective. There is a class that is required for my doctoral program and it is only taught once every two years. It’s coming in Spring.
It’s at 1:30 pm. I’m at work until 2:45pm. I’d get to class at 3:15pm and it ends at 4:15pm. Needless to say, I’d miss nearly two hours of lecture which I simply cannot afford to do.
Please don’t rag on lecture, this is not what this is about. It’s not up to us to decide how she wants to teach. The professor is a wonderful lady but is a bit older and she does things a certain way. Truth is, I like her classes, and I enjoy the lecture.
I’d like to capture video of the lecture but am not sure how to do it without it being a huge pain in the neck.
If the class were shorter I’d just give my Flip camera to someone, but it only holds an hour of footage.
If I’ll get there at 3:15, that’s an hour and 45 minutes. The other solution is a second Flip? I suppose that’s possible.
I have a few friends in the class so I could easily get them to set up cameras for me.
Anything better? Something simpler than two cameras?
Jen says:
I would talk to the professor first and see what options she may have. Do you know if there’s wireless in the classroom? Someone could ustream it and record the stream. Maybe the college can provide a recording solution. I think it’s important for your story to get to the IT and eLearning people, so they are aware of your needs. If I had more student feedback, it would be much easier to make decisions. Do you need video? Would audio work? She may be willing to to record digital audio for you in exchange for you editing and publishing it for her. I see lots of options!
3rd October 2008 at 9:36 am
Cathy Nelson says:
I second the thoughts on Ustream or just digital audio capture. Perhaps you can repackage the audio if that is the route you must go, and give it to her. Maybe you can offer to make the course a podcast, much like Itunes U or other collegiate classes that provide free audio of courses.
Cleaning it up, adding an intro and end on it, and editing out unnecessary stuff may be a perfect gift for the prof to (brownie points anyone?)
3rd October 2008 at 8:03 am
Ben Chun says:
Get a Canon FS100 — they’re about $300. You can get 5 hours of video on an 8GB SD card (which is under $20) in LP mode. I would not rely on wireless connectivity or a computer-based system for this. Using a camera is pretty straightforward. When you’re ready to watch the thing you can either plug it straight into a TV or pull the video file off the SD card.
3rd October 2008 at 1:08 pm