Click here to receive your FREE subscription to Campus Technology
News
U Wyoming Students Vote To Implement Sonic Foundry's Mediasite for Lecture Capture
7/24/2008
An overwhelming student vote for Mediasite will put the Webcasting platform from Sonic Foundry into University of Wyoming lecture halls this fall. Mediasite is a presentation capture tool that records and synchronizes audio, video, and slides and then allows the presenter to provide it online for on-demand viewing or in podcast form. The tool also enables the presenter to make the presentation available online as it happens."The decision to purchase Mediasite was student-driven and student-funded. When the committee viewed the technology and discovered its benefits, the majority of students voted to install Mediasite," said Maggie Deming, director of IT services and chair of the Central Student Technology Committee (CSTC). The CSTC is comprised of student and faculty representatives from each of the university's eight colleges and strives to support a wide variety of state-of-the-art technologies.
Marcus Curley, a recent graduate, was one of the 16 students on the CSTC that selected Mediasite. "I was on committees, taking 16 hours of classes and working 20 hours a week. I had a busy student life. To have the ability to go back and watch classes would be the perfect way to ease the stress of school a bit. It's a huge benefit to be able to review on your own time," said Curley. "Mediasite can also help you transition into higher education. Early in college you're trying to figure out how to take these classes and be efficient as a student. Taking notes takes a lot of time and you miss some things. With Mediasite you can just watch, listen, and absorb the information as it comes and not have to worry whether you're going to remember this later."
Initial deployment at the University includes three Mediasite classrooms in the main lecture building, as well as one portable unit. Faculty scheduled to teach in that building will have the chance to demo the lecture capture technology this fall. By spring of 2009, faculty will be able to request the technology, dubbed WyoCast On Demand, as part of their classroom environment.
"We feel that classroom capture will be a game changer for the university. Mediasite is the most innovative technology the [CSTC] voted on for this coming year. It will let students be more engaged in the class instead of having their heads down in their notebooks," said Deming. "Mediasite will be a learning resource for students. If someone has a problem getting through a certain formula--if their notes don't make sense to them--they can review and reinforce the learning that happens instead of being lost in a class."
According to the company, Mediasite is in use in 600 colleges and universities, including California State University San Marcos, Central Michigan University, and Northwestern University School of Communication.
Dian Schaffhauser is a writer who covers technology and business. Send your higher education technology news to her at dian@dischaffhauser.com.
Cite this Site
copy text (above) for proper citation
Recommended Reading
- Digital Arts Alliance Adds Fordham U
The Digital Arts Alliance, a consortium led by the Pearson Foundation that promotes digital arts in K-12 education, is expanding its membership with the addition of Fordham University. This follows on the heels of three other organizations joining the group back in July--the National Education Association (NEA) Foundation, the Foundation for Investor Education, and Employers For Education Excellence (E3).
- Payment Card Security Toughens with DSS 1.2 Release
Opinions are mixed on what the new Payment Card Industry (PCI) DSS 1.2 standard will mean for security pros going forward. However, the mandate is clear: protect data.
- 6 Universities Join NASA Astrobiology Institute
Research teams from six universities have been selected by NASA to become members of its Astrobiology Institute with the aim of exploring the "origins, evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe." Teams were each awarded five-year grants, averaging $7 million each, according to NASA.
- Amazon To Host Microsoft Solutions in the Cloud
Amazon announced Wednesday that it is conducting a private beta test of Microsoft's server products running on Amazon's hosted computing platform, which is called Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2). Amazon expects to offer companies the ability to run their applications on EC2 using Microsoft Windows Server or Microsoft SQL Server sometime in the fall, according to an announcement issued by the company.
- CRM Pushing into New Areas of Higher Ed
Implementing a customer relationship management (CRM) solution can require "difficult or even painful behavioral challenges" for administrators in higher education, according to Nicole Engelbert, a lead analyst with research and analysis firm Datamonitor. "It means re-orienting yourself to your students. That can be tough, so you need to be ready for that."
- Integrated Collaborative Environment Leverages Web 2.0
Here's a bit of trivia for your next high-tech happy hour: A "nog" (in addition to being a Christmas favorite) is a wooden block built into a masonry wall so that joinery structure can be nailed to it. For the founders of Piscataway, N.J.-based startup Bluenog this obscure bit of carpentry nomenclature was the perfect metaphor for an integrated software suite that includes a content management system (CMS), rich portal features and business intelligence (BI) capabilities.
