ASCUE 2001 Myrtle Beach, S.C.

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ASCUE 2001Myrtle Beach, S.C.
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The Possibilities and Perils of Streaming
Multimedia to Students

• Jon Mueller Judy Walters
• North Central College

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North Central College

• Located in Naperville, 30 miles from Chicago
• Comprehensive Liberal Arts college
• Founded in 1861 (United Methodist affiliated)
• 2500 students
• 1750 full time undergraduate
• 1000 residential
• Many career focused majors
• 6 graduate programs ( Business, Computer Science,
  Education, MIS, Liberal Studies Leadership)

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What the Brain Likes

• VISUAL IMAGERY
• Organization
• MEANING
• (and chocolate!)

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What is Streaming Media?

• Text
• Pictures
• Charts Graphs
• Computer Screen Shots
• Sounds
• Music
• Speech

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What is Streaming Media?

• Compare a bathtub to a shower.

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Streaming Media

• Significantly compressed audio/video
• Delivered almost instantaneously
• No downloading necessary
• Can successfully view media clips with even a
  fairly slow modem (28.8 Kbps)
• On demand/replay

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Testing the Water
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Course Website Beyond the Repository

• More than just posting syllabus/assignments
• link to supplementary material
• access to interactive exercises/reviews
• promote additional discussion
• deliver DIRECT INSTRUCTION

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Why We Chose Real Products

• Previous positive experiences
• Webcasting events
• WONC radio broadcasts

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Why We Chose Real Products

• Stable
• less technical support to keep the server running
• lower long term costs

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Why We Chose Real Products

• Multi-platform
• players, content creators, and servers
• Windows -- Macintosh -- Linux

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Real

• Real Presenter
• PowerPoint slides with voiceovers music
• Real Producer
• Video
• Real Server
• Stores and streams the files to students
• Real Player
• Used by students to view the media clips (free)

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The Setup and Cost

• Server is a PC running UNIX
• 100 Simultaneous viewers
• 12,000 for server hardware, software, and
  licenses
• Can start with free software and simple server
  setup for almost nothing

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We Started Small
1. Web components and
multi-media integrated into traditional
classes 2. One entirely on-line
course

• Mathematics
• Political Science
• Business
• Psychology

• Philosophy
• French
• Biology
• Computer Science

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Streaming Media to Support a Traditional
ClassIntroduction to Psychology
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Additional Flexibility

• Allows more active learning in the classroom
• Delivers more content outside of class
• Captures elements of active lecture
• imagery
• intonation
• questions
• review

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Pedagogical Uses of Streaming Media

• Deliver direct instruction
• Preview and review
• Share with colleagues
• Develop a repository of lectures/lessons
• Access campus/guest speakers

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Streaming Media to Support an On-line Web
delivered ClassProblem Solving Using
Spreadsheets
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http//csc.noctrl.edu/f/jcw/ifs104
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Starting Excel
START PROGRAMS NCC APPS
MS OFFICE Microsoft EXCEL
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Our First Spreadsheet
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How I Made My Presentations

• 1. Plan a spreadsheet that uses the concepts and
  techniques to be demonstrated.
• 2. Create the spreadsheet, taking a screen shot
  at every step.
• I used Snagit which allows you to save as a
  .jpg whatever part of the screen shot you want.

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How I Made My Presentations

• 3. Create a set of PowerPoint slides, using a
  template so all the slides have the same basic
  look. Most slides will contain one of the
  spreadsheet screen shots.
• Insert / Picture / From File
• 4. Save and Print the slides.

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How I Made My Presentations

• 5. Plan the narration to go with each slide and
  make notes to speak from.
• 6. Use RealPresenter to
• convert the PowerPoint slides to .jpg files
• add narration to the slides
• bundle everything into a streaming media module

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How to Make a RealPresenter Media Clip

• Make your PowerPoint slide show as described.
• Start RealPresenter running and open the file
  holding your PowerPoint slides.
• Follow the directions to add narration to the
  slides.
• Review and re-record individual slides if needed
• Save the presentation and upload it to your
  streaming server.

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Students Liked

• Can view from home or dorm room
• Can view when they want
• Can select what to view
• Can replay selections if necessary

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Special Needs Students

• Limited mobility students
• Sight impaired students
• Students with reading disabilities
• ESL students with limited English

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Improvements

• Shorter, more focused media clips
• Clearer titles for media clips on Web page
• Clearer titles on individual slides
• Used to navigate forward/backward
• 30 characters maximum

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In Summary

• Possibilities
• Perils

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Possibilities of Streaming Media

• Deliver direct instruction
• Preview and review
• Share with colleagues
• Develop a repository of lectures/lessons
• Access campus/guest speakers

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Perils of Streaming Media

• Technological
• Excessive content creation time
• A/V quality dependent on equipment
• Possible excessive buffering time
• Must consider low-end users
• Servers can go down

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Perils of Streaming Media

• Pedagogical
• Locked into tool use
• Locked into content
• Locked into methodology

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Wading in the Stream
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Next Steps

• Share with potential users (PowerPointers)
• Integrate into Blackboard
• Showcase possible uses
• Build a repository

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Questions?

• Jon Mueller jfm_at_noctrl.edu
• Judy Walters jcw_at_noctrl.edu
• http//jonathan.mueller.faculty.noctrl.edu/ascue.p
  pt