[LINK] University of Missouri to require iPod touch or iPhone for Journalism students

[Tom Worthington]

At 11:05 AM 25/05/2009, Brendan Scott wrote:
>... and discover there was no lecture because the mic wasn't working 
>or there was some other technical problem. ...

Dead microphones happen occasionally. ANU uses a clever system called 
Digital Lecture Delivery (DLD) for the digital recording which uses 
the same microphones as for amplification in the room 
<http://www.tomw.net.au/technology/it/podcasting/education.shtml>. 
This way it is likely a non-functioning microphone, usually due to a 
flat battery, will be noticed. The system also uses the central 
calendar to work out who is speaking and for which course. A bigger 
problem is forgetting to turn on the recording system.

The opposite is also a problem: I have to remember to turn off the 
recording when someone comes up to ask me a personal question after a 
presentation.

But it is was a bit disheartening the first time I announced that 
lectures would be recorded and a third of the students immediately 
got up and walked out. It is a very rational calculation for them: as 
one student explained, there are lecture clashes and they therefore 
attend the lectures which are not recorded.

My solution to this, and to the problem of students leaving work to 
the end of the semester, is to not have lectures and to have 
assessable questions about the material to be studied which has to be 
submitted each week. While it does not make up a large proportion of 
the assessment, if the students don't pass the weekly exercises they 
fail the whole course. This seems to work for the Green ICT course I 
run for ACS and I am going to try it at ANU next semester. It will be 
interesting to see how the ANU students, who are not used to this way 
of working, cope.



Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                      http://www.tomw.net.au/
Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Australian National University