WTHR-TV 13, Indianapolis

Purdue podcasting
Rich Van Wyk/Education Reporter

November 30, 2005

Pop, rock, rap, what else would you expect ringing the ears of college students?

How about Biology 438 or Econ 251 or Chemistry 123? Welcome to the new cyber realm of podcasting, or as Purdue prefers, "We like to call it Boilercast," says Boilercast creator Michael Gay.

Classroom lectures are remotely recorded and pasted to the Internet. Then, Abra Ca Dabra, broadcast to students' desktops, laptops and handheld music players.

Michael Hicks thinks, "It seems pretty magical to me."

More than magical.

"It's pretty cool." So cool that Matt Wolf's laptop computer and palm size iPod contain dozens of lectures, plays and replays. "It is useful to review classes and review material and it helps with test and exams."

Podcasting gets its name from the immensely popular iPod audio recording and playing devices.

With the number of Boilercast classes at 65 and growing, with thousands of students subscribing, Purdue believes no other university in the world has a bigger podcasting network.

For decades Purdue put lectures on cassette tapes and put them in the library. Before being relegated to the basement, students listened to them about 1,000 times a semester.
Now students are downloading nearly 4,000 lectures every week.

"That's what makes it great and that's what makes it dangerous, both at the same time." Elizabeth Mix teaches art and design.

It's great, she says students can listen more, take fewer notes.

She worries some will cut class and rely only on the replay. "It is a supplement. It is meant as a supplement to what is going on in the classroom. It is not a replacement and I think that is the potential that has to be dealt with."

Professor John Anderson is skeptical, using podcasting only in a small upper level class where he says attendance isn't a problem, unlike large lectures with hundreds of underclassman. "I believe that they may not come to class."

Freshman Jordon Dunham says he wouldn't think of skipping a class and listening on the Internet? "No, not yet."

But Dunham's friends have. "A lot of them have skipped the lectures and listening to them on podcast."

Remember the 1980's movie Real Genius, a naive freshman actually goes to class finding the desks filled with tape recorders.

Gay says, "The image of that scene in the movie did pop in my head as I was designing the system."

It's too early to know if podcasting affects attendance. Professors are watching and hoping in the calliope of modern technology an ancient proverb, "Hearing about something 100 times is not as good as seeing it once," rings even louder in the ears of students.