CUSTOMER SPOTLIGHT:

Podcasting at GWU

The George Washington University was preparing to launch a lecture podcasting initiative for the Fall 2006 term.  GW was searching for a way to simplify podcast creation and publishing, and eliminate the need for faculty to adapt to manual podcasting techniques.

“I did not want podcasting tools to be disruptive to any faculty members using them,” says P.B. Garrett, assistant vice president for academic technologies at George Washington University.  “It’s embarrassing to walk into a classroom and not know how to use the technology.”

With the start of the fall semester looming, GW equipped six classrooms with Apreso Podcast to automatically capture lecture content and instantly convert it into podcasts playable on iPods and MP3 players.

“We were going to try to do this in-house,” said Garrett.  “But with Anystream, we were able to get started on a tight time frame.”

GW’s initiative included iTunes U, Apple’s free service to aggregate and publish lecture podcasts to university students. As an iTunes U innovator, GW was the first institution to develop an automated content upload mechanism for the portal. Using this integration, Apreso lecture podcasts are automatically published to GW’s iTunes U site for immediate student review.

“Automation is highly valuable in higher education because it facilitates the adoption of teaching and learning technologies,” said John Arpino, GW academic technologies senior programmer analyst and project manager. “By integrating with iTunes U, Anystream best serves the needs of both faculty and their students.”

80% of GW’s lecture content hosted in iTunes U is created using Apreso Podcast.  GW’s iTunes U site received more than 1,800 student visits within three weeks of going live.

“We wanted a solution that required no special tasks from our instructors. We chose Apreso because it automatically creates content to feed our system,” said Arpino. “The initiative has been quickly adopted because students are familiar with the iTunes U interface and Apreso allows professors to focus on teaching rather than podcasting.”

“The feedback has been fantastic,” said Arpino. “We are podcasting a diverse set of courses but it seems to be especially helpful to students taking larger classes. Apreso offers students additional access to course information that reinforces their classroom experience. We plan on including this functionality in eight more classrooms for the spring semester.”

EXECUTIVE MESSAGE:

Supporting Podcasting at Your Institution

Fueled by vigorous debates surrounding learning benefits and attendance questions, podcasting has become the “it” topic at industry conferences, blogs and even in mainstream press. One thing that isn’t at issue is the demand for access to educational content outside the classroom.  Propelled by publicity surrounding Apple® iTunes U, many instructional technology teams are under the gun to implement a broad-based podcasting initiative.

Until now, podcasting initiatives have been largely a grassroots effort, supported by a few tech-savvy faculty.  These self-taught faculty members manually capture lecture audio, manipulate audio files and post to a website for student access – a time commitment of as much as three to four hours per lecture session.  This process, largely dependent on a single person, doesn’t provide the strong foundation for institution-wide podcasting. 

At Anystream, we view podcasting much like any other type of lecture capture: the ability to replay the classroom experience provides valuable learning benefits including improved retention and learning outcomes, but current podcasting methods simply prohibit podcasts from becoming a reliable, “always available” educational tool.

Planning is critical to any podcasting project.  Before starting, your institution should answer the following questions:

• –   How will lecture content be created?
• –   Will the podcasts include course visuals for enhanced podcasts?
• –   Will the finished podcasts required post-production or other manual editing?
• –   How will students access their podcasts?

With Apreso Podcast, institutions now have the option to make lecture podcasting and enhanced podcasting a routine part of the educational experience.  Apreso Podcast vastly simplifies the process of capturing and publishing lecture podcasts - without requiring technical expertise on the part of the faculty or manual production steps by instructional technology staff.

Apreso Podcast lets institutions launch, manage and scale lecture podcasting from a single classroom to a campus-wide deployment with a fully automated approach to podcasting.  Scheduled once at the beginning of term, Apreso Podcast captures classroom audio and optional course visuals, and automatically creates a podcasting-ready version of the lecture.  When class is finished, the audio and enhanced podcasts are instantly published to course management systems. And because Apreso is fully integrated with iTunes U, it maximizes the time and development investment of an iTunes U deployment.  By subscribing to course RSS feeds, students can subscribe to their course podcasts. Each time they log into iTunes U, lecture content is instantly synchronized to their iPod or other device.

Apreso Podcast is an affordable, hassle-free solution to supporting today’s podcasting initiatives.  For more information on Apreso Podcast, visit our website at http://www.anystream.com/prod-apreso-podcast.asp.

Regards,

Mark Jones
Vice President/General Manager, Apreso Products

MEET THE TEAM:

Tom Zelickman

Full name: Tom Zelickman
Title: Technical Support Engineer
Years at Anystream: 3 months
College: North Carolina State University (GO PACK!)
Degree: Science, Technology, and Society

Job Experience:

While working at NC State, I began working on “podcasting” in 2001. I originally began the recordings as a method of getting foreign language instruction and cultural awareness to US troops overseas. My research then grew to video recordings of entire semester’s worth of lectures as technology became more mature. Most recently, I co-presented a podcast creation workshop for the Foreign Languages Association of North Carolina (FLANC) at their annual conference that was rated as one of the best of the conference.

If you could go back in time and use Apreso in only one class, what class would it be?

Differential Calculus because I never seemed to be able to pay enough attention to the instructor, my notes, and the girl who always flirted with me in class!

If computers were never invented, what would you be doing now?

Jumping out of airplanes in far away places.

Who do you admire the most? Why?

My dad. He led by example, worked hard, and put his family first.

Favorite Color ?

Red

What is the craziest thing you've ever done?

Skydived from 28,000 feet, raced cars, hitchhiked across Egypt and swam with sharks in the Red Sea.

One thing you must do/see in this lifetime:

Done it... see previous question.

TECH TIPS:

Creating RSS Feeds and Public Search Pages

RSS feeds are web feeds that supply digital content to the user automatically based on a subscription.  In Apreso, students may subscribe to a RSS feed to instantly receive updated lecture content in iTunesU and on their iPod or MP3 player.  

The Apreso Content Manager provides a built-in mechanism to filter content based on a Course ID, optional Section Number, and a valid date range.  This feature allows for a unique URL optionally enabling podcasts and public pages that filter course content. 

Create a New RSS/Search Channel

1. Logon to the Apreso™ Content Manager as an administrator.
2. Go to the RSS/Search Configuration page and click Add Feed/Search Channel
3. Select the link to Add Feed/Search Channel
4. Enter the Course ID, optional Course Section, Section Start Date and Section End Date.
5. By default, public search pages are created at this point.  To create podcast RSS feeds, these must be selected in the Feed Types section.
6. Click Save to create and save your channel settings.
7. Once the RSS Feed/Search Channel is created, it will be in the listing page.  To reveal the unique links for this channel, click the Chain Link.
8. The links listed provide access to different types of content:

   Standard Podcast Link – provides the necessary XML for podcasting standard MP3 audio.
   
   Enhanced Podcast Link – provides the necessary XML for podcasting enhanced podcast content.
   
   Search Link – provides a link that opens a public page, not requiring authentication, listing available Apresos.

KNOW AND TELL:

GWU and Washington D.C.

1,800:  The number of hits GWU had within three weeks of the debuting its Apreso podcasting solution.

What’s in a name?:  Early names for the District of Columbia included Washingtonople, Federal Town and Capital City.

Georges’ Town:  DC’s hip Georgetown district, named for its founders George Beall and George Gordon in 1751, was annexed by the City of Washington as the result of an act of Congress in 1895.

1904:  The year in which Congress changes the name of Columbian University to The George Washington University.

The benefits of a short commute: George Washington chose the land for the District of Columbia because of its close proximity to his own property in Alexandria, Virginia.