UW-Stout Taps Echo360 Lecture Capture To Connect with Distance Students

  • By Dian Schaffhauser
  • 09/25/08
Distance education students at the University of Wisconsin-Stout are enjoying the personal touch in their online technical communications program thanks to deployment of lecture capture from Echo360. EchoSystem captures in-class voice, video, and visual aids from such devices as smartboards and tablet PCs, then publishes the combined media to a school's learning management system, iTunes U portal, or Web portal. It also provides RSS feeds. The student can access the material via PC or handheld device.

At Stout, the technical communications program blends multimedia, product marketing, and interface design under a single degree. As one of the smaller programs offered at UW-Stout, administrators in the technical communications program were looking for methods to improve enrollment numbers. In a statement from the vendor, the school said that attracting additional distance-education students allows for an increase in enrollment without requiring more classroom space.

"The ability for us to matriculate additional distance-education students per class is a make or break for this program," said Matthew Livesey, program director and assistant professor. "Using Echo360, we enroll two to four additional students per class and give them a better distance education experience. It is a win-win for UW-Stout and our students."

"Our distance-education students have access to the same curriculum and faculty as the other students. But they express frustration over the missed interactions as they aren't attending class in the physical classroom," said CIO Doug Wahl. "Echo360 captures the culture of the classroom, connecting our distance-education students with their on-campus peers and faculty."

Other Echo360 customers include Arizona State University, Boise State University, and Oregon State University.

Echo360 also recently launched a new Web-based editor for its lecture capture system. Further information about that can be found here.

About the Author

Dian Schaffhauser is a former senior contributing editor for 1105 Media's education publications THE Journal, Campus Technology and Spaces4Learning.

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