MPhil Thesis Defence


"Enhancing Course Content through Podcasting of Lecture Presentations"

By

Mr. Kin-Kong Chan


Abstract

Podcasting has recently seen rapid expansion as a means of delivering
audio content to listeners. Podcasting is one of the emerging web
technologies which include Blogs, Wikis, and Social Bookmarks. These
technologies provide yet another opportunity for instructors in higher
education to enhance their course content, by providing additional
channels for information delivery to their students and enhancing
collaborative and cooperative learning. In this thesis we report our own
experience with the use of podcasting as a means of delivering online
recorded audio of classroom lectures to enhance the course materials. We
achieved this with minimal institutional and infrastructure support in
contrast to other such studies reported in the literature.

Student feedback from our project indicated the need to provide a video
recording of a classroom lecture. Therefore, we developed ReCap, a tool
for automated capture and creation of synchronized audio, PowerPoint and
digital ink presentation in Real media format. Our tool captures a
classroom lecture in real-time. Recorded presentations are then made
available through a podcast which students can subscribe using any podcast
receiver. A slide level and pen stroke level indexed presentation is also
supported on Internet Explorer. By avoiding full-fledged video capture,
file sizes are significantly reduced, typically requiring only about 10 Mb
for a one-hour lecture. Another salient feature of our tool is that it
requires no post-processing to create the synchronized media, thus saving
significant post-production effort. ReCap requires minimal hardware
support: a windows-based PC with sound recording capability for capturing
the lecture dynamics, and a web server with PHP support.

Diffusion theory of innovation provides a framework to identify factors
which affect the adoption of an innovation. Applying analysis based on the
theory, we believe that podcasting is at the stage of being tried out by
earlier adopter, the positive feedback from earlier adopters, who are
opinion leaders, will guarantee rapid adoption in the future.


Date:				Friday, 1 June 2007

Time:				10:30a.m.-12:30p.m.

Venue:				Room 3416
				Lifts 17-18

Committee Members:		Dr. Jogesh Muppala (Supervisor)
				Prof. Andrew Horner (Chairperson)
				Dr. David Rossiter


**** ALL are Welcome ****