Conference session – Automating Classroom Recordings

Consortium of College and University Media Centers 2007 Annual Conference

Conference session – Automating Classroom Recordings
Presenter – Grover Saunders, JMU

This session covered JMU’s solution to bringing the recording of student speeches/presentations into the digital age. Previously, all recording of student presentations had been simplified from camcorders on tripods to wall-mounted PTZ cameras and ceiling microphones. This worked well, but the medium was VHS (albeit, a simple format) and not digital. With the phasing out of VCRs, many students had no way to play back their recordings. DVD recorders proved to be troublesome with the wide array of disc formats (DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, etc), and the extra time needed to “finalize” the discs was a problem as well. Also, with every year the students became more and more accustomed to getting video from the Internet.
The solution was to utilize the current PTZ cameras and microphones and integrate them into a user friendly, all digital, web-based storage and delivery system. This was accomplished by adding a Mac mini, an analog to digital converter, and an external hard drive along with several inexpensive software tools. The Mac mini becomes the digital video recorder and software scripts are used to schedule and upload the recorded presentations to the JMU streaming server. Once encoded, the instructor is provided with links that can be renamed and embedded in the Blackboard learning management system.
The presentation was well received and generated a lively question/answer session.