Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
Opinion
Liberating the Learning Environment – Automating Multimodal Content
9/5/2006
universal design principles in the traditional lecture hall and online. As a former teacher, I know that this is sometimes easier said than done. That perfect (or so it seemed) learning activity or lecture is likely biased toward a particular learning modality and targeted to reach a particular learning group, despite best efforts to engage all students.One approach that enables a more universally designed environment is to present and capture content using a new application of speech recognition (SR) technology. Since 1999, an international consortium of university and industry partners has been advancing a concept called Liberated Learning.
Liberated Learning courses use specially designed SR technology to automatically provide real-time captioning of speech so all learners simultaneously “see” and hear a presentation. The instructor’s speech is transcribed and displayed as text while he or she lectures. The software generated transcript is subsequently available as lecture notes for further access after class through an online portal. This transcribed text is also synchronized with the digital audio, as well as any other media used during class. This approach creates a more “universally designed” learning environment, not only in real time but via the online notes that allow for easy information search and retrieval.
The Liberated Learning approach also has eLearning implications. With the explosion of podcasting in higher education, more online content is available as streaming audio via RSS feeds or as simple MP3 downloads. However, search and retrieval of specific information from multimedia sources without a corresponding transcript is a difficult proposition. Instructors who use the Liberated Learning approach automatically create a rich set of learning objects from their everyday classes, which facilitates the easy creation of a blended learning environment.
Online text can be made more dynamic through SR applications being developed by the Consortium. This can be achieved in two ways: the instructor can create the content using SR software, which digitally records the speech and synchronizes it with the resulting text. Alternatively, the software can provide a text-to-speech computer synthesized output that is synchronized with the text. Either way, the user can choose how to access the content, which through this application of SR is now available in the following combinations: text only (html), audio only (i.e. a podcast), text and audio (an “enhanced” podcast), as well as any combination of media sources used as the content is created (i.e., slides, screen capture programs, video, etc.). The key to this approach is preparing the content in such a way that it is easily customizable by the end user to provide flexibility.
Recommended Reading
- Getting the Money Right
A clear sign that online and distance learning is maturing is that we are struggling with how to organize and fund these programs on an ongoing basis.
- Technology and Campus Services
Can auxiliary services be mission-critical? You bet they can. With tuition on the rise, Auxiliary Services departments at a variety of colleges and universities are proving that they can innovate and still save their parent institutions cash.
- Ad It Up
Commercials on television tend to enrage me and laugh tracks are guaranteed to give me a headache. Plus, where do people find the time to watch TV?
- What Is the Purpose of an Electronic Portfolio? Is the Answer the Key to Your Successful Implementation?
Among many themes, Margaret Price explores the theme of purpose in her Viewpoint. One purpose of ePortfolio is to reflect on change from a beginning to a later point in time. In a future Viewpoint, Margaret will return to the SpEl.Folio and we’ll see how her thinking and her project have evolved.
- Making Faculty Smarter about Smart Technology
If you’re not also enabling the ‘why’ or ‘what’ behind the tech tools you give your faculty, you’re not enabling effective use of those tools.
- Smashing the Shackles of Intentionally Dysfunctional Technology
Until last week, it hadn’t "clicked" inside my head that the Library of Congress could or would make specific exemptions to copyright laws.
