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Indianapolis Star Listen while you learn Earth to Johnny Sophomore. It is now 8 a.m. and you may download the Chemistry 101 lecture to your iPod or other personal music listening device. Goodbye. That futuristic scenario is here now, yet not everyone involved in higher education is thrilled. An increasing number of colleges and universities across the country, including Purdue University and Indiana University, are using digital recording technologies that allow professors to easily record their class lectures. Audio content can then be downloaded to a student's personal computer, laptop or MP3 or iTunes device. "They download it into my music player," said Kim Stiers, a 21-year-old art education major at Purdue University. "It'll just come on sometimes between music." Stiers says she always tries to come to class and uses the audio recordings only for review, especially before tests. She also can fill in gaps in her written notes when she can't keep up with her teacher's rapid-fire speech. Not everyone is sold on the technology, however. Indiana State and Ball State universities do not have similar systems in place, according to their respective spokesmen. Hanover College, a small private liberal-arts college in the southern part of the state, doesn't want any part of the technology -- at least not yet. "If that kind of learning was effective, it would have worked with television back in the 1950s and 1960s," said Jane Jakoubek, vice president and dean of academic affairs at Hanover. "We tried it then, and it didn't work. . . . In the long term, students learn better in a real-time setting." Yet many schools continue to embrace it. Purdue's version of "podcasting," as the phenomenon is generically known, is called BoilerCast, and about 50 classrooms on the West Lafayette campus are well-equipped to easily record and forward audio portions of lectures, says Bart Collins, director of digital content at the school. That's about one-fourth of all classrooms and lecture halls on campus. Not all teachers in properly equipped classrooms use the feature, however. The term "podcasting" comes from the popular iPod personal music listening device, but the idea always is the same, and the technology similar, no matter what digital equipment is used. IU calls its system "iStream." It's a play on the word "streaming," meaning the audio can be "streamed" to listeners online in real time, as the lecturer is speaking. Keith Anliker uses iStream during his 8 a.m. chemistry lectures on the IUPUI campus every Monday and Wednesday morning. Anliker says he began using iStream after he noticed that several students were recording his lectures anyway; they were using the audio portions for review. But he also was interested himself. "I actually review pieces of my lectures fairly regularly," said Anliker. "You can check on yourself. Sometimes, especially if you're doing a large class and you've done the same class before, you can't remember if you did this specific example, or do you remember that from another semester." Yet it's mostly students who want to listen to old lectures. Some say they annotate their written notes in minutes; for example, if the professor said something during the 40th minute of the lecture and the student wants to review just that point, he or she will know exactly where to fast-forward the recording. Scott Sebree, a 33-year-old welder and part-time student at IUPUI, says he downloads every lecture he can at school. "I have an MP3 player and listen to it while I'm at work," said Sebree. Another student said she listens to old lectures while doing the laundry; yet another, while walking the dog. But naysayers, like Hanover's Jakoubek, say students must be part of a give-and-take with their instructors, free to ask questions at will, and to turn those questions into a group discussion. Any class notes, readings or lectures as such should have been reviewed before class meets, in most instances. Fans of the new technology don't dispute any of that. They insist it's just an adjunct to the classroom experience, not a substitute. Teachers at many schools already post readings and study aids on their Web sites for students to consult, including Hanover College faculty. Erica Carlson, a Purdue physics professor, not only records her voice on the BoilerCasts, but also students' questions. She's also filed her lectures on the popular iTunes site (www.apple.com/itunes), in the science and education categories, so people worldwide can download them. "The best learning happens when the students are active," said Carlson. "I would not want to replace my class meeting times with podcasts." Nevertheless, podcasts are a national phenomenon: • At UCLA, the college library offers MP3-based informational items for undergraduates. • The University of Michigan School of Dentistry podcasts all large-classroom lectures for students. • Duke University offers students a wide variety of podcasting options, and even hosted the "1st Symposium on Academic Podcasting" in September. So why should students get out of bed anymore? No class? No problem! Not so fast. IUPUI chemistry teacher Anliker always reads his formulae aloud and enunciates clearly, but it's still better to see the formulae written out on the overhead projector, he believes. Purdue art history teacher Elizabeth Mix displayed a series of nude photographs of Georgia O'Keeffe by Alfred Stieglitz during one recent class -- people who only listened to her BoilerCast didn't get to see any of those. Besides the lack of visuals, security is another issue. Some of the podcasts are password-protected; others aren't. In general, podcasts can be accessed from anywhere on the globe, just like any other Internet site.
Yeah, but what exactly is podcasting anyway? Not bad, but not right, either. Podcasting is defined as the Web-based broadcasting of music which works with software that automatically detects new files and is accessed by subscription, according to the online source dictionary.com. If it all sounds like a term that was coined just yesterday, that's because it was. The word comes from joining computer giant Apple's music listening device, which is called the iPod, with the word "broadcasting." The term has become generic and now refers to any Web-based system that downloads content (whether audio or video) to almost any suitable digital or computer device.
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