May 27, 2009, by Teaching at Nottingham

Making a podcast of a lecture: recording and uploading to WebCT

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Andrew: “This is the podcasting kit we use in lectures. It’s pretty bulky. This is what I just picked up from the learning and teaching resource and support people. This is the main kit and these are just the wires to plug it in, which I’ll do.

“So that’s plugged in and on. Now I need the mike, which isn’t a radio one, but the lead is long enough to walk round with, if needs be. You clip the mike on, in the right place, probably about there. Now it’s on, it’s ready.

“I just need to set up the recording volumes, which you do record and pause. And that’s it. You just wait for people, then press record and it starts.”

Andrew in the lecture: “We’re all aware of these sort of figures, and what’s going on. So that’s the second main thing, it’s not like we’re ignorant of this. And the fact there’s the idea of a global village now and globalisation and the Internet. We can’t claim ignorance of this stuff.”

Interviewer: “So we saw you record a lecture that you gave a couple of days ago and you’ve got it here now ready to make available to the students. Could you show us what you do?”

Andrew: “Yes sure. Okay, so basically I’m just going to plug it in… My computer recognises it. Here. I just open it… I open the folder where it is, there it is, I normally re-name it straight away so it doesn’t get lost in all the other documents. I just click and drag it on to the desktop and that’s it. Then I just unplug it, tidy it away and take it back.”

Interviewer: “So that’s got the recording off the machine and onto your computer,”

Andrew: “Yes that’s correct.”

Interviewer: “What do you do now to make it available to your students?”

Andrew: “Okay, so what do I do now to make it available to my students? I go online… Go to the log on WebCT page… and I put my username… Okay, so this is my WebCT, the business end of it, so I will go to Applied Ethics, my Applied Ethics course here. I use the University’s podcasting uploader… and then browse my desktop, and as you saw I just put it on my desktop, find that. Okay there it is so I just double click that, click the upload button, okay that’s done that.

“Then I go to the Applied Ethics course, there, and then because it’s a lecture on poverty I put it in the poverty file, create web link, title is lecture 10 and poverty. Then I add the url for the podcast I just uploaded there… save that, and that’s it you just log out. That’s it.”

Interviewer: “Do you know much about how the students use it?”

Andrew: “They use it for revision, some students go out jogging listening to me and mow their grass whatever but basically revision I think that’s the main use for it.”

Interviewer: “So they download it onto a device and take it away or listen to it on the computer?”

Andrew: “I think there is a mix in what people say some have it on device but a lot listen to it at the computer.”

Andrew Fisher (School of Humanities).

Andrew is lecturing on a first/second year module on Applied Ethics (V7AAPE) to approximately 40 students in the Clive Granger building. Produced May 2009.
This video was originally published as part of PESL’s Teaching at Nottingham collection.

Posted in Lecture recordingLecturesTeachingVideo and audio