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 Above: Just click "Subscribe" for lectures on the go |
Stay in tune with lecture podcasts "The first duty of a lecturer: to hand you after an hour's discourse a nugget of pure truth to wrap up between the pages of your notebooks, and keep on the mantlepiece forever." Famous author Virginia Woolf wrote this about a hundred years ago. But she might not have foreseen that nuggets of pure truth these days come in digital form. They are stored not between notebook pages, but on portable mp3 players - as digital podcasts. With lecture audio recordings now downloadable via the Integrated Virtual Learning Environment (IVLE), students now have little reason not to download these nuggets of wisdom for themselves. Whether it was a lecture that you missed, or an important point you didn't quite grasp during the lecture - it's easy to refresh your memory by revisiting the podcast. Download and playback Students log in to the IVLE and are presented with a range of options, if the lecturer has made them available. You can download the mp3 file manually, listen to streaming audio or subscribe to the podcast feed. If you choose to download the mp3 file manually, it'll take just a few minutes to download. The file size varies depending on the length of the audio recording, averaging at about 25mb each. The recording lasts from one to two hours, as lectures vary in duration, depending on the module. Subscribing to the podcast feed, on the other hand, offers a more convenient way of staying up-to-date with the latest lectures, as the audio files are automatically downloaded to your podcast receiver regularly. Some podcast receivers are iTunes and Juice. To subscribe to the podcast feed, just head to the respective Multimedia Webcast sections of IVLE. Copy and paste the feed URL into your podcast receiver, and you'll always have the latest lecture ready for playback on your computer or mp3 player. From webcast to podcast The Centre of Instructional Technology (CIT) has been webcasting lectures since the late 90s, and this award-winning webcast service is very popular with students, says its publications officer, Kenneth Gerard Pinto. "To watch these webcast lectures, you have to be online. If you have a laptop, you can't watch your lectures while travelling to school," he says. With podcasting's rise in popularity, the next logical step was to extract the audio from webcasts and turn them into readily downloadable podcasts. "Since many students have their own iPods and mobile digital devices, this is a way for them to take advantage of the podcasts instead of being physically tied down to their computers and a network," says Pinto. "They can listen on the go, and refer to their lecture notes too." Different types of learners Introducing lecture podcasts is more than just a jump onto the bandwagon of the latest popular technology. It is an effort to reach out to all NUS students, with the recognition that everyone learns differently. "The podcasts cater to different types of learners - some audio, some visual. The more ways to connect students with their study materials, the better it is for everyone," says Pinto. We're looking at the broad spectrum of things. The podcast service started proper at the beginning of this year after trial runs last semester. According to a recent Yahoo! research report, says Pinto, while awareness of the word 'podcasting' is very high, the actual number of people listening might be a lot lower. This is because RSS technology, which enables the automatic downloading of podcasts, is still relatively new. But RSS looks likely to become more accessible, especially since Windows Vista, the next-generation Windows operating system, will integrate RSS support, says Pinto. To equip NUS students with the ability to harness this new technology, if there is demand, CIT will spearhead education efforts on how to receive podcasts. "NUS is always at the forefront of introducing new technologies," he says. Get on board with ease For now, 45 podcast lectures are available. Out of this number, 43 are undergraduate modules. But these figures look set to jump, as it is easy for lecturers to get on board. "Simply request for the webcast service, leaving the option for podcasts on," says Pinto. "Your lectures will be webcast, and the audio recording extracted and made available as podcasts." With new technology in NUS, those digital nuggets of wisdom are ready for retrieval, anytime you need it. |