Lecture Capture's Impact on Undergraduate Learning, Satisfaction and Retention

Hi.

My name is Erica St. Angel, and I'll be

moderating today's webinar.

Our title is Lecture Captures Impact on Undergraduate

Learning, Satisfaction and Retention.

Thanks so much for joining us today.

A bit of housekeeping before we get started--

if you'll notice on the MediaSite player you're

watching right now, there's a little speech bubble.

That's a question tool.

You can use that to ask a question at anytime.

And our presenters will speak for a bit, and then we'll take

your questions at the end.

This presentation will be available

immediately on demand.

You can click the same link that brought you here today.

If you'd also like to share it with colleagues, there's a

little envelope button that'll allow you to email it to them.

And the PowerPoint will be available after the

presentation, as well as a PDF in the Links tab, where you

can also find some additional information about today's

presentation.

And I also wanted to point out that this couple here has

actually written the book on distributed learning.

And they edited a collection of articles back in 2005.

And so today, we're going to be learning about a new

project that they've just completed, a pilot project,

research project, with some students.

And with that, I'm going to turn it over to our presenters

from Clemson University, Dr. Pamela Havice

and Dr. Bill Havice.

Thanks so much for joining us.

Thank you.

Thank you.

My name is Bill Havice.

I am the associate dean in Academic Support Services and

Undergraduate Studies in the College of Health Education

and Human Development at Clemson University.

Clemson University is a land-grant institution in the

northwest corner of South Carolina.

With me is my wife, Pam Havice.

She's an associate professor in the Eugene T. Moore School

of Education in the College of Health Education and Human

Development at Clemson, as well.

A little bit about what we have planned over the next few

minutes, our agenda.

We'll start out with just anchoring a little bit with

life today, talk a little bit about distributed learning

environments, and what a distributed learning

environment is, and then, the lecture capture research

project that Pam and I have been involved with and

recently published.

Think of your life today.

If you were to turn on CNN, you would not only be watching

the news, but you would be invited to possibly do a tweet

on Twitter.

Over 95 million tweets are done on Twitter

each and every day.

You might be asked to blog, use Facebook, use podcast,

interactive opportunities there with the news.

Your personal communication: texting.

We live out of the palm of our hands these days.

Students today are in constant communication with their peers

and their family.

I know if I want to communicate with my daughters,

they say, Dad, you want to text me if you want to get a

hold of me, because email is for you old folks.

And we're not using that as much as we used to.

On a daily basis, I use Skype to use interactive video

conferencing with my friends and colleagues and students to

communicate, which makes it a little bit richer

communication, rather than just with audio.

And essentially, today, the personal communication that we

have access to, students today, it's just simply the

technology is an extension of their bodies.

Learners today are mobile, smartphones everywhere, using

netbooks, digital photography.

YouTube is used on a regular basis.

Wherever you go in the country today, you see people pulling

out their handheld devices, taking pictures, sending

photos, sending videos to one another.

Simply, we're emerging into an environment where the students

that we deal with on a regular basis are, for the most part,

not at all intimidated with technology.

Colleges and universities like Clemson are increasingly

looking to technology to enhance information sharing.

And one of the ways that we facilitate communication now

on our campus is if you can't attend a graduation ceremony,

you can log on to the internet.

And the live streaming video takes place.

And you can be at the graduation ceremony, even

though you're not.

And the rich lecture capture capability technology that's

available today for particularly asynchronous

recording--

taking a rich blending of audio, video, and the

computer, and being able to pack information that can be

played back in a useful way at some other time.

So Pam and I are going to talk with you a little bit today

about a research study that we did, that we're looking at how

we might be able to enhance the learning environment for

the students on and off campus.

Truly, today, technology has become the catalyst for the

21st century learning environment.

It's something that we need to embrace, take advantage of

what the strengths of the technology truly are to

enhance learning, but realize, at the same time, we don't

want to use it just for its novel purpose.

The distributed learning environment that Pam and I

talk about is a flexible learning environment for

constructing knowledge, skills, and understanding.

What is a distributed learning environment?

Well, a distributed learning environment is--

in the past, for the most part, we identified distance

education when we did distribution of information

truly at a distance.

You had a teacher at one place, you had a student in

another, and they were separated by distance.

Well, today, that doesn't exist. You might be able to

distribute the same information to a person that's

seated next to you, utilizing a computer.

And at the same time, you're distributing that information

to the other side of the earth.

We also have storage and retrieval capabilities, to

where you can access information anywhere, anytime,

in the format that you want it, at the time

that you need it.

And so a distributed learning environment

really supports this.

And of course, a distributed learning environment would

include a large potpourri of media.

And it's not any one particular media.

It's using several of them to integrate and convert the

technology for a useful purpose.

And then, using interactive capabilities of networking,

computing, multimedia we have access to, and then hypermedia

capabilities of the internet, of course.

And then, instructional methods and strategies, such

as collaboration, discovery learning, problem solving, and

active learning.

All of this in an environment that's rich and useful.

A sample of a distributed learning environment--

and this is the type of environment that we used in

the particular study we're going to share with you--

is Pam managed course content with Blackboard.

And she utilizes chat discussions using discussion

boards, calendars.

Her syllabus is available to students out on Blackboard.

She utilizes email.

Students are required to do journaling for reflections and

evaluations.

We utilize the Mediasite product to do the rich media,

capture many lectures.

Of course, we can webcast. We also might use two-way

interactive video conferencing.

Of course, Skype is a product that we've been

using quite a bit.

It's so easy to access and use.

And then, of course, traditional face-to-face

interaction is part of a distributed learning

environment.

So essentially, what we're talking about here is a place

where the learner has more control.

And the learner can orchestrate the development of

knowledge over time.

And essentially, the distributed learning

environment model that we're looking at and talking about

is a very rich blending of instructional methods,

strategies, media, and delivery.

Now I'm going to share the mic with Pam.

Hi.

We want to spend the bulk of our time this morning talking

about our little research project, where we used rich

media capture to capture lectures, and what we call

mini-lectures.

To frame this a little bit, I want to step back and look at

what the literature is saying about lecture capture.

We're both faculty members, so supporting our decisions about

how we teach courses with literature and research is

usually quite important.

Now, at the present time, most of the literature is talking

about almost like a case study approach, where it's

individual faculty or departments embracing this

technology, maybe not necessarily entire

institutions.

We know that the people who are futurists, who predict

trends for the future, are saying that that's

dramatically increasing, particularly the expectations

over the next decade.

But right now, it is kind of spotty in different places.

One of the more recent pieces of literature that's out there

by [? Leoni ?]

[? Elicte ?]

from October 2009 showed that 50% of survey participants

reported just using recording audio, not video--

partly because faculty, I think, are very hesitant about

going on camera.

Many people aren't comfortable about being

in front of a camera.

And so they're more willing, oftentimes, to just do an

audio recording versus an audio-video recording.

There's little standardization in the lecture capture

technology environment.

I do think that's improving.

We've seen big strides in that improvement over just the last

several years.

But that still is a concern at times.

And then, the automation--

being able to not have to rely on

technological support as great--

again, is improving.

But it's still an area of concern.

And then, there's very little research, right now, and

limited best practices on how to teach and how to learn with

lecture capture.

And so we're hoping that this little pilot study will start

filling a little niche there.

Now, the purpose of this study was to critically examine how

rich media or interactive multimedia lecture capture

presentations, as part of a distributed learning

environment--

which Bill just described how we are

defining distributed learning--

affects the satisfaction and engagement among students

enrolled in a research course.

So the direct research question, then, was, how does

a distributed learning environment affect the

satisfaction and engagement of traditional, face-to-face

undergraduate students enrolled in a

research project course?

Now, I feel like we need to kind of explain why we would

have these students in this research project course as

undergrads.

At Clemson University, our provost has an initiative that

she calls creative inquiry.

And her goal for the creative inquiry is for every

undergraduate student on our campus--

which is about 14,000 students--

to have a small group research learning experience.

And usually, the way these groups develop is that a

professor has an idea, or a project, or question.

And they put it out and ask students to be a part of it.

And so the students basically volunteer and sign up for

these courses, starting with that professor's question.

And then, the professor challenges the students to

investigate and answer, all along while providing support

to the students.

So we're trying to shift that learning environment from just

listening to actually being investigators, and from just

asking the questions to actually being engaged in

finding the answers to the questions.

So it is revolutionizing the learning environment on our

campus for undergraduate students.

Most of these projects last anywhere from

three to four semesters.

And they do receive some modest funding to help support

some of the research that is going on.

So that just kind of hopefully frames where we're coming from

with this little class and this particular project.

So our creative inquiry research group had 15

undergraduate students.

Again, the whole purpose is for a small group learning

environment.

Clemson University is a midsized, southeastern public

land-grant university.

And the distribution of the participants, we had 14

females and one male.

And the majors that are represented in these

participants were primarily among health,

nursing, and education.

The methodology we chose was a mixed

methods descriptive approach.

So we had qualitative and quantitative

data collection methods.

And from the quantitative approach, we developed an

anonymous online survey that the researchers developed.

The researchers would include Bill, myself, a couple other

faculty members from the different disciplines that I

just outlined for you, as well as some

master's graduate students.

And this survey had 18 questions focused on students'

engagement in this course.

Six of the questions focused on computer technology

experience and their familiarity.

And then, two questions pertained to student

demographics, so we could get an idea of

gender and what major.

These questions were based on a five-point Likert scale.

So that kind of gives you an idea of what our instrument,

in a very brief concept, might have looked like.

From the qualitative approach, our data collection was done

through focus groups.

So we split the class into two focus groups, seven in one

group, six in the other.

If you're going, well, what happened to the other two?

the two students were absent from class that day, so we

actually ended up with 13 people participating in the

focus groups.

To analyze the quantitative data, the students reported

having very little difficulty in using the technology.

As Bill had reported previously, many of these

students, technology is just an extension of their bodies.

So they're pretty savvy, even with learning what the new,

emerging technology might be about.

71% of the participants reported feeling very

comfortable with the rich media lecture capture

applications.

100% of the respondents said they felt that the streaming

rich media presentations were very valuable, and an

effective part of the course.

And 71% responded that the delivery of the content,

thought it was as effective as a traditional

face-to-face delivery.

There was still a little bit of hesitation on the part of a

couple of people as to whether they preferred the

face-to-face versus the rich media lecture capture.

Finally, with the quantitative data analysis, 86% of the

students reported not having preferred

access to just the audio.

They liked having the audio and the video part of the

streaming rich media presentations, and felt like

that helped them stay more engaged in the actual

presentation.

100% of the students, or all the students, reported that

the streaming rich media presentations helped them keep

engaged in the subject that was being presented.

Now, in contrast, 29% of the students reported that using

the streaming rich media presentations they felt like

increased their workload, because now, they have

something else they had to do.

Besides maybe read a chapter, now they need to listen to and

take notes from a lecture capture.

With all that said, from the survey results, all

participants recommended using lecture

capture in future courses.

So you can see that the results are somewhat mixed,

but for the most part, highly positive.

Now, Bill's going to talk to you a little bit about the

results from the qualitative analysis.

Two questions were posed to the focus group.

And they were designed to allow positive and negative

reactions using rich media in the distributed learning

environment.

Question number one was, what challenges to learning and

participation have you experienced in using the rich

media presentations?

And the second question, how have the rich media

presentations increased your engagement in this class?

Researchers analyzed the responses and coded the data

using a method of open coding.

And the open coding is simply a data analysis technique used

to process smaller pieces of data and

categorize them into themes.

And we found three themes surfaced in our work: the

nontraditional classroom setting, technological

instruction, and student interaction and engagement.

The nontraditional classroom setting, the focus group

responses were mixed.

Students valued the opportunity to have a change

in environment, which they felt increased their learning.

And they learned better in a relaxed, familiar environment,

like a bedroom or a coffee shop, being able to access the

information when and where they would like.

Students, about pressures of the traditional classroom--

dynamics--

in certain classes, you need to ask questions or give

responses better than that of your other classmates to gain

a professor's attention and to look smarter than your peers.

And this was an interesting piece.

But it's the reality of how the students felt about using

the technology rather than being able to interact that

particular piece of information, or that

information, with the professor.

The lecture capture presentations allowed them to

focus more on the material, and not on the hierarchical

system in certain classroom settings.

They enjoy the nontraditional classroom setting--

the second category--

save time in their schedules, discuss being able to view and

listen to the online lectures while washing clothes,

cleaning their rooms, or surfing the web for

supplemental materials to fully understand the lectures,

and then-- another comment--

could have class whenever their schedule allowed.

The format places more responsibility on the student

to find time outside of the scheduled class to meet and

view materials.

And again, you can see from this nontraditional class

setting, it puts more

responsibility onto the learner.

But it also gives them more learner control over accessing

the information when and where and how they want to do it.

The rich media capture also helped with the students

staying on task, and putting that burden on themselves

rather than onto the professor.

Less face-to-face interaction with the professor limited

students' ability to understand what the

professor's expectations were.

And then, most who shared the need for a face-to-face

discussion did not like that they could not simply ask the

professor a specific question.

Technical instruction was the second theme that came out of

the qualitative data.

And the first bullet is talking about how the students

were given quite explicit instructions about how to

download the class materials.

But some of them felt like, though the explanations were

very understandable, and they were easily able to do some of

this, they still felt like compatibility and downloading

issues needed some additional technological support that the

instructions did not necessarily clarify for them.

And primarily, that came from, I think, some students who

were living off campus in some more rural environments, where

possibly, the internet provider wasn't as strong to

support some of this technology.

And then, several of the participants reported having a

little bit of difficulty because they were unfamiliar

with Blackboard.

They just had not had any reason to use Blackboard in

other courses they had taken.

And another area of technological support, or the

technical instruction part here, were more on the

positive side.

They really liked the ability to be able to start and stop

the rich media capture lectures, and thought that

that was a very positive aspect, particularly if you

were taking an online course.

If they desired more information, they could stop

the lecture.

They could search online for additional information.

And they could come back and start from where they stopped.

That was a great thing.

Or they could replay the information as many times as

they needed.

And they could take notes at their own pace.

I will say, at the end of this project--

because I told you that these research projects lasted over

three or four semesters--

at the end of the project, as the students were trying to

conclude their own research on the little project that they

had accomplished, many of them commented that they went back

to these lecture captures and replayed this information

about the research process, and what the parts are of a

research project, because they wanted to re-familiarize

themselves with the notes.

So that was a very a strong point of technical

instruction.

They appreciated the lectures were very short and concise,

which helped them keep their attention on

the particular topic.

They felt that, because they were recorded like this and

that they were short, that the instructor didn't over-explain

and stray away from the topic, but kept it to a

very specific point--

which sometimes, the straying and getting off topic

sometimes happens in traditional lectures.

And they also reported that when they opened the online

lecture, when they clicked on it, they knew pretty much what

they were going to be listening to.

The topic was very identified.

It was very packaged.

So they could sort, and they could rearrange, and they

could listen to different pieces at different times.

The final or third theme that came about from the

qualitative data collection was about, specifically,

student interaction and engagement, which was the main

focus of this little project.

All participants agreed that the online component helped

create an opportunity to rely on their peers and other group

members more than the traditional classroom--

so meaning, I think, that it got them together, asking each

other questions, engaging in discussions and conversations

about the material that maybe, if they were sitting in a

normal lecture class, they would not have engaged in.

Some particularly relied on other students to help them

with this engagement.

And they thought that this whole experience of having

this collegial--

if you want to say--

discussion about a topic, it felt like they were

experiencing a more high level academic course similar to

what they think a graduate course, or graduate school

experience, would be.

Other participants did not necessarily feel that, but

many of them did.

They noted that the rich media format of online courses in

the group book was a unique curricular experience.

Most of them had never had this type

of experience before.

And they liked the idea that, when they did meet in the

face-to-face classroom environment, if they had

watched the media lectures or the lecture captures ahead of

time, then they were able to use the face-to-face class to

actually really talk to the faculty, and ask more engaging

questions during those discussions.

So overall, what did we find from this?

What discussion and conclusions can we have?

The majority of students were very satisfied with the use of

rich media lecture capture in this particular distributed

learning environment.

Some of them believed the online aspects did increase

their workload.

However, it did not negatively affect their satisfaction with

the whole course.

The results of this particular little pilot study support

that asynchronous rich media lecture capture presentations

do increase student satisfaction with online

course delivery, and also, positively affects students'

course satisfaction by allowing access to rich media

presentations on their own timeline.

As Bill explained, they really liked the opportunity to

access this in their own apartment, at a coffee shop,

framing it in the time where they work best and learn best,

and that the students were able to play back and pause

the lecture capture presentations at will.

So they felt that this promoted a greater

reinforcement of the course content that we were trying to

get through, that they were more engaged in the actual

content, and that the retention in the course was of

greater magnitude than a normal, traditional

face-to-face classroom.

So rich media lecture capture from this particular project,

in this particular distributed learning environment, did

appear to positively impact the students' satisfaction and

the students engagement in this particular course.

Those are the major points that we wanted to share with

you about our little research project, Erica, so--

We have tons of questions.

Oh, OK.

We have tons and tons of questions.

And as a reminder, if you joined us a little bit late,

first of all, several of you have asked, will this

presentation be available on demand?

And absolutely.

We archive these.

You'll find the same link that brought you here today will

play this presentation for you again.

You can use that Share button if you'd like to share it with

colleagues.

You can also find it again on the website at

sonicfoundry.com.

And we will be appending a PDF of their PowerPoint slides,

which several of you have also asked for copies of.

So if you'd like to ask the question

now, use the Ask button.

It's a little speech bubble.

And if we don't have time to get your question today, if

you could please include your contact information, that way

we can connect you with the Havices after the

presentation's over.

So one of the first questions was about asynchronous versus

synchronous learning, and how was it structured for this

particular course, and then also, the length of those

lectures that they were watching?

OK.

Well, the course was designed with both asynchronous and

synchronous.

So we have the online asynchronous aspect with the

lecture captures.

And then, we had some synchronous because they did

some chat discussions.

So they had some opportunity to do that.

And the third component, then, was the face-to-face.

So we did use a variety of aspects of a distributed

environment for this particular class.

You'd mentioned short for a typical lecture.

Right.

What would you define that time frame as?

We tried to keep those little mini-lectures to

five minutes or less.

Some of them we achieved that with, and some of

them, not so much.

But we definitely kept them under 10 minutes.

If they went over 10 minutes, then we reformatted it.

And a question about the demographics of the

participants.

Tom was asking, of the 15, 14 were females, and only one

male, which seems a little disproportionate compared to

your population.

But was there a strategy behind choosing them, or was

it just who happened to be enrolled in the course for

that period of time?

It was an intact course.

So these were all students that were in that course.

And if you go back and you look at the majors, this was

nursing, public health, and education, which tend to be

heavily female dominated.

So I think that does speak to why that

ratio is a little skewed.

We were talking before we went live, before you joined us,

about the size of the course, that it is smaller in

comparison to some of the other larger studies that have

taken place.

And you had some interesting perspectives about where to

begin, and then, maybe where you might be going down the

road with future research projects.

Well, one of the things we wanted to be able to do was to

refine an instrument for data collection.

And this really acted as a pilot force.

So we'll look at the reliability of the instrument,

and see if we can't replicate it with a larger group.

OK, great.

And you had also mentioned student recording.

And a couple people had asked about what exactly does that

mean, or the digital portfolio piece that you'd--

you'd mentioned a bit that there are other uses of rich

media lecture capture at the university, outside of just

this particular pilot study.

Well, in fact, Pam has a graduate program that she is

responsible for.

And each one of the students in that program create an

electronic portfolio.

And they publish it to a disc.

Well, part of that publication is a rich media capture of

their student philosophy.

And it's a two-minute piece.

And students are required to give their philosophy of

student affairs in that piece of time.

Originally, we started out with a five- to seven-minute

piece, only to find out that people that were watching the

philosophy statement, they didn't want to watch it for

five to seven minutes.

So we asked with those that were reviewing it for us, what

amount of time would you be willing?

Well, maybe two minutes.

Maybe two minutes at most. And so what we did was cut back to

two minutes.

And one of the things that we found right away is that it

was a challenge for the students.

But it was a rewarding experience for them to realize

that they truly could articulate themselves in a

couple of minutes what was taking them five to seven.

And the concept behind this portfolio was not only to have

and end of the program assessment of what the

students had learned and how they had grown, but also to

give them a tool to market themselves when they're on the

job search.

And that's when Bill's referring to, we pulled back

the amount of time for those recordings for their

philosophy of student affairs.

It was based off of those employers.

We tested that.

And some of them were saying, there is no way I'm going to

listen to this for five minutes.

But if you can get it to two minutes or under, I would

listen to this.

And it is meaningful and helpful.

So more and more of our students are finding that a

useful piece for them in their job search.

Well, it's a testament, too, I think, to the multiple ways

you can use this technology in a learning environment that

maybe aren't necessarily immediately out-of-the-box

recognizable.

Sean has asked if the students mentioned that it took more or

less time compared to an in-residence course to be a

part of this.

I think when they're thinking more time, possibly, it's

because we're changing the philosophy of learning on

them, and going to more of a constructivist point of view,

which is the belief that learners need to construct

their own knowledge.

And our educational system, for the most part, people's

experience has been very passive.

You sit in a classroom, you take notes.

You'll have an exam where you give back to that instructor

what you know from taking those notes

or doing the readings.

And that's been our very linear, very passive learning

environment.

And constructivist theory about learning has been around

for quite some time.

But I think we have some technologies now that really

make it much more engaging, much easier for us as faculty

members to pull in those kind of concepts.

But that is shifting the paradigm on students.

And some of them are jumping on that new paradigm with

interest and excitement.

And some of them are quite like, you're changing my world

up, and I don't know quite how to deal with it.

So I think their perception that this created more time in

their workload was more of we're changing something that

they are not used to yet.

And they have to become comfortable with that.

I think after they got through the process, and they saw what

all they had learned and how much they had grown, their

perception was maybe a little more that the workload wasn't

that great.

More balanced.

Were you going to add something?

I was going to add that, early on with hypertext, we found

that students were really excited about hypertext.

Or they didn't like it at all, simply because we are

structured in a linear environment.

If you read a book, you start with chapter one, you go to

chapter two, then chapter three.

Now, on the internet, you can jump around in a hyper format

to where you go and you make links on your own.

Students today, more and more, are enjoying that freedom.

They are able to go from one location to the next by their

choosing, rather than having it be so structured.

But yet, at the same time, that's different for the

learner, because of the linear way that we present

information in the classroom.

We've talked a little bit about the impact that this has

had on the learner.

I'm wondering if you could talk about the faculty.

I know you have a long history with using lecture capture

technology.

But as you're seeing it deployed across other parts of

the Clemson University campus, what are the trends you're

seeing, and how are you maybe overcoming some of the

obstacles to adoption?

Well, I think one of the biggest things that I notice

is a faculty person wanting to take and do a recording like

they would a typical lecture, which is good.

But when you're thinking about how it's going to be viewed by

the learner, rather than having an hour long

presentation, we are working at coaching them into having,

let's say, rather than an hour long single presentation,

maybe you break it up into 12 five-minute units.

And then, that will allow the students to go at the

information as they wish, rather than being seated

through a 60-minute lecture, which is not something they're

accustomed to on the internet.

And are you seeing a quickening, or a broader

adoption, of requiring viewing of the lecture prior to coming

to class, and then using the class time for discussion or

other activities?

I've actually had, just in the last couple of weeks, two

different faculty approach me about how that's

working out for them.

And they enjoy the idea of being able, in their classroom

setting, to not spend so much time on the content.

They spend some time on discussion of the content that

the students have already taken the responsibility to

investigate by going out and viewing the

information prior to class.

An interesting question that I don't know that we've touched

on, or maybe you have--

Mark is asking about the social dimension of the

distributed learning environment.

And he's interested in the social constructivist

dimensions of learning environments.

Was there any aspect of that present in your classes?

It's a stumper.

Yeah.

I would think that might depend on how he is defining--

When I think of social, I'm trying to think, OK, well, my

first thought was Facebook and social

networking kinds of things.

And social constructivist--

I think the way many of the course management systems are

developed is to try to engage some of that social

constructivist learning process.

And that can be done through discussion boards and chat

discussions, where you're bringing them online together

in different formats-- some of it's asynchronous, some of it

is synchronous--

to get people sharing ideas and reacting to

other people's ideas.

I would say my experiences in working with rich media

capture and having students view those mini-lectures on

their own, and then come back together in a chat discussion

environment, and then having discussions online, has been

something I've been doing in other courses for some time.

And I have found that to be very rewarding for me as a

faculty person, because I really feel like I have a

greater sense of what the students are learning.

Whereas if they're in a big lecture classroom with 36

people, there's always those people that are very

extroverted, who speak up and raise their hand.

And I know pretty clearly what they think and what they know.

But there's always that little group of people who tend to be

very introverted, who never speak up in class.

And sometimes, I leave classes thinking, are they getting it?

Are they understanding anything?

And I do believe that this particular format, this

distributed learning environment, where we have

used mini-lectures, and then had the students break into

chat discussions online, gives that introverted person a very

real opportunity to explain.

And there, I have a better sense of what they're really

learning and what they're gaining from the particular

course than I do in the traditional classroom.

And I'm not sure if that's getting at

what Mark was asking--

I was going to say, if it didn't, then send us another

note, and we'll connect you offline.

And that goes for anybody that has a specific, more detailed

question about the study methodology, or about your

implementation at Clemson.

A question about asking questions.

You'd mentioned that some of the student feedback-- and I

can't remember if this was the quantitative or the

qualitative--

had to do with not being able to ask questions of the

professor at a specific moment.

And this person is asking, did you not use the Ask feature,

like in the player we're using today?

Or were they not able to ask questions when they were

watching lectures outside of class time?

Right.

Or through Blackboard.

I think it's indicative of the millennial generation, to be

real honest with you.

Because everything's on demand.

And their whole lives, everything's on demand.

In this particular environment, this was an

asynchronous usage of lecture captures.

So they were out there on Blackboard.

They could access them anytime, anyplace, anywhere,

as many times as they wanted.

But that meant that there was not an instantaneous response

from a faculty member.

And if you're in class, you can say, hey, so-and-so, I

didn't understand that.

Or that's not what I understand from the reading.

Well, you don't have that kind of interaction in this

environment.

That means the student has to go the next step and effort to

actually pose an email to the faculty member,

or pick up a phone--

I know that's old thought--

or save that question to the next face-to-face class.

So I do think it is something that, as a faculty member, I

need to be sensitive to and figure out strategies to

address, but yet, at the same time, maybe spending a little

time with our students about what's realistic as far as

questions, and when they can be asked, and how fast they're

going to be responded to.

And we just had a flurry of questions more about what

faculty can expect when they're doing this.

Someone from Ohio is asking, how are you encouraging and

training instructors to migrate to a distributed

learning environment?

Well, one of the things that we had to figure out right

away was a support structure that would work.

So we had a computer client support person that was

willing to become our rich media coordinator.

And she's done a tremendous job of learning how to

facilitate and utilize the Mediasite product.

So faculty in our college are able to make an

appointment with her.

And she guides them through successful recording.

And at the same time that she's doing the mechanical

side of things, she's also coaching them on how they

might be best successful with some of the things that we've

actually learned.

And we're continually trying to have constructive criticism

about what you see, what you hear, and how might we be able

to improve upon that.

And of course, with having the rich media coordinator, she's

able to share that with each of the faculty that make

appointments with her for recording purposes.

And in your model, you've got faculty

opting in to be captured--

it sounds terrible, to be captured-- to be recorded, or

to use recorded lectures as part of their instruction.

In other campuses, I know that it's not an opt in.

It's a mandate, either from a campus-wide dictate--

and that maybe will change some of the options for how

faculty come on board, and the training takes place.

But in your specific for instance, it's spreading by

word of mouth, and people seeing what other people are

doing, and then wanting to emulate that type

of activity on campus?

Certainly.

But I think as more and more faculty become used to the

technology, they'll find more and more reasons to use it.

And we've actually found that we have more requests on a

regular basis.

And I think from a faculty point of view, we've mentioned

that many faculty are very hesitant

about going on camera.

I think one of the reassurances that may help

with this is if they are reassured their recording's

going to be placed on a secured, protected site, that

it's not going to be put out there as a YouTube video, or

something like that, that the whole world can critique.

When I'm doing these, these are put on a Blackboard.

So the student has to be enrolled in my course to

access the information.

It's not public domain, though there are things that we've

done that are public domain.

But I think if faculty can start off in a small,

protected environment like that, it may help bridge that

reluctance to participate.

Most definitely.

And we've only got a couple minutes left.

And I see there's a lot more questions coming in now.

But keep them coming, and include your name and your

email address.

And then, we'll either follow up with you if it's technology

question from Sonic Foundry side, or if it's more about

the deployment or the study parameters, one of the Havices

will follow up with you.

We did have one question from Jean about, do you have other

published research on lecture capture and student learning,

or could you point them in certain directions on what you

could share?

We have a couple of articles in the Distance Ed Quarterly.

And I know that's where this particular study was published

just recently.

And we recently put out an e-book aggregating all of the

different studies that we've been privy to.

Many different universities are doing research.

But some become public, and some don't.

So if you go to our website, sonicfoundry.com, on the

Resources page, you'll actually find an e-book there

about the impact of Mediasite on learning.

And there's studies, I think it's over about

a seven-year period.

So that might be helpful to you, too, as well.

Well, I want to thank all of you for joining us.

And I definitely want to thank you for presenting today and

sharing your latest research.

And we look forward to the next phase, having you come

back to Madison.

And again, if you'd like to watch this again, just click

the same link.

You can share it with your colleagues.

And it'll be available on the Sonic Foundry website.

Thanks so much for your time, and have a great day.