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Case Study
Audio in an Asynchronous Learning Environment
4/3/2007
This was delivered just before the start of the fall 2006 semester. At the faculty's weekly meeting, the Center for Learning Excellence coordinator outlined how to use the i-River and how to upload the audio documents using the USB cord and provided tips on file maintenance. In an effort to make sure files were easy to upload and download, faculty were advised to set the recording quality to "low." This would make a 50-minute lecture about 14 MB, which is much more manageable than the same lecture recorded on the "medium" setting. This presentation was uploaded with a recording of the meeting to a course shell accessible by all faculty. At the end of the presentation, all faculty were given their own i-River T30 and asked to begin using the recording of their lectures as they saw fit.Hurdles and costs
After one semester of having these resources available, the number of faculty using them is less than what was originally expected. However low the number of early adapters was, however, there is still quite a breadth of disciplines represented in those that have begun recording their lectures. This includes faculty in the Graduate college, the Multimedia college, and the Software Engineering college. By allowing these people to share their uses and experiences, it's hoped that others will find the inherent value in giving students an option of listening to lecture in an asynchronous fashion.
Also, upgrading the firmware of the recording units has posed another hurdle. This was addressed by e-mailing each of the faculty members with a hyperlink to instructions on how to upgrade the firmware, along with a member of IT making himself available to perform this upgrade during another faculty meeting.
The majority of the cost of implementing the recording of lectures was the purchase cost itself: By purchasing 80 of them at about $60 dollars apiece, the investment of less than $5,000 dollars was money well spent. Faculty, over time, will undoubtedly find how this tool can be implemented in their respective courses and will soon be providing their lectures in a format that works well for them. By providing the resources and allowing faculty to "play" with this new technology over the first semester, it is believed that anecdotal evidence of successes will begin to emerge as a best practice throughout the university.
Jay Kahl is the Center for Learning Excellence coordinator at the University of Advancing Technology in Tempe AZ. He currently teaches the Ethics in Technology course at the institution. His previous experience in teaching was with disadvantaged junior high and high school students in the Phoenix metro area.
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