The microphones in the lecture theatre have to be used. They’re often viewed as technology that blends into the background and as such are easily missed. But every mic, including the ‘gooseneck’ microphone attached to the podium has an ‘on’ switch and, of course, an ‘off’ swtich that the presenter before you might have switched.

These microphones are primarily used to aid in voice-projection; they are linked to the speakers in the lecture theatre. But they double-up as recording inputs for Q-Review.

There are easy ways of testing to make sure the microphone that you’re using is turned on:

• When it’s switched on, a light will come in and…
• you can tap the microphone very lightly and you should hear the impact loud-and-clear from the room speakers

I’ve included some (very blurry) photos taken in the Fogg Lecture Theatre in the School of Biological and Chemical Sciences.

Here you can see the ‘gooseneck’ podium microphone. In a bit closer and you can see the ‘on’ switch and the light that’s come on.

Here you can see the other two microphones you can choose to use (note that you could use all three if you chose):

1. A handheld mic that you could carry about or perhaps hand out to the audience for questions
2. An infra-red microphone that you could clip to a shirt pocket or wear around your neck

The handheld mic has an on/off button.

The infrared mic has an on/off button and a volume control.

So what does it do? It’s a free application that works as an excellent screen recorder; either video or a still image. It sits in a very tidy manner at the very top of your screen like so:

When you click on the unobtrusive circle you given the option to Capture or look at your History. The History option will bring up your Library; Jing will record every capture you’ve made and its current location. The second point there, location, is important… and we’ll get back to that in a bit.

The capture software gives you the option of a still image or video. The video is a fairly basic recorder but often-times that’s all you need. It will produce something like what you can link to below (note that all the images and videos in this post are recorded using Jing and hosted by Screencast… WordPress unfortunately will not accept embedded video from Jing so just click to follow the link instead). What I’ve recorded is a brief run-through of the annotation tools available for a still image. In this example, let’s say I’m giving an introduction to the tools in Photoshop. Audio can be included but I’ve decided not to.

Click here to see an example of Jing video on the screencast website

Lastly, I mentioned how important the location was to note. This is, in my opinion, where Jing excels. The biggest issue we find people have with online video is not how to record but where it goes. Jing will allow you to save any capture locally (the swf video comes with a player built into the file) but it will also upload any files to Techsmiths free hosting service called Screencast. You can also use it to FTP to any site or to upload to Flickr or YouTube. All very very useful. The free hosting service has a limit of 2GB of space and 2GB bandwith p/m usage but that’s more than enough for you to start making a library of short rough-and-ready content for your learners.

Lastly it also publishes a paragraph of HTML so you easily embed content into another location, for example your VLE course area.

There is a reason why the simple audio podcast continues hold popularity over enhanced and video podcasts. ; Audio is simple and cheap to produce. More information and a deeper analysis can typically be conveyed to the listener. It is easy and cheap to access.

I can likely understand how to use a mechanical device better by illustration or video that I can by text. I can learn pronunciation in a different way by audio than by text. I can sometimes feel more a part of a community that I can see and hear than I simply read about. This is not to say that text is anything but essential; but rather that other approaches should also be evaluated. But there are other, less apparent reasons, why other media might be considered in HE.

Student numbers are rising and it is difficult to meet that need. Lecturers face overcrowded theatres where they cannot answer individual questions; practical demonstrations are given to hundreds of students at once; language lecturers cannot listen to individuals; and so on. It is hoped that digital media can aid in meeting this challenge.

Listening (and speaking) exercises can be placed online for language students to practice against. Lectures can be recorded in advance and made required viewing for anyone wishing to attend the face-to-face sessions which are now delivered as seminars. Practical demonstrations can be recorded and made available to anyone wishing to quickly review how to use a microscope or a lathe. Feedback can be recorded and sent a student as an audio file often faster than it can be typed out and delivered.

Of course a lot of this content has been been produced before. With the ubiquity of free, often excellent, content online via YouTube, Wikipedia, Voice of the Shuttle and others; educators are moved toward re-evaluating their role. An educator can no longer consider themselves a store of materials and knowledge. To deliver a course to a student cannot be simply to distribute materials; it is the use of those materials, the context around them and the narrative through which they are released that becomes important. Many of the tools we include here allow you to repurpose existing content with embedded players and rss feeds; to try and act as a gatekeeper between your students and the web.

It should also be considered that students are well-used to this range of content before entering Higher Education. Our learners are changing and, no matter how we may feel about that, we will need to adapt also. A lecturer here in QMUL stated that “I was surprised to see some distance-learning students who were quite active in using the course web page. In the discussion forum, one distance-learning student, not TAs or lecturers, answered many questions from other distance learning students, and another distance-learning student volunteered to video-record lectures and made them available on the web page”. The culture of sharing and collaboration that new ‘Web 2.0′ tools rest upon is starting to filer into the classroom.

How to Podcast

Using the Wimba Podcaster