Adrian Weckler thinks the UCC Podcast/videocast idea is doomed but according to this Sky News piece the idea is that videos and podcasts of lectures will help out those that missed lectures and be an additional study aid to those that attended the lectures. Looks like James Bowen is one of the people behind this. James is not liked by the Freedom Institute. Whatever about his politics, this guy lectured me when I started an Elec Eng degree years back and he honestly gives a damn about UCC and Ireland producing world class students. This initiative looks to be a very good start and UCC seem to be out of the starting blocks way ahead of other colleges and it looks like they have a lot of backing in UCC for this.
Bernie adds his thoughts to Adrian’s piece and wonders how UCC will manage this given the time it takes to do a simple podcast. They already have managed it and they’ve done it well. So far they have produced 80 videos from 10 different UCC Departments (and another 4 on the way). They also have covered special public lectures, conferences, information for prospective students, special events like Pierce Brosnan getting conferred and loads more topics.
Already there are videocasts from the following UCC departments:
* Astrophysics
* Biochemistry
* Computer Science
* Earth Science
* Geology
* Geography
* Health Science
* Microbiology
* Physics
* Zoology
and more on the way from:
* Anatomy
* Applied Psychology
* Chemistry
* Physiology
Go visit the UCC Outreach TV site for more information. I guess this is one reason why they have won University of the Year two years in a row.
I want Arts Lectures. Wouldn’t mind doing a History of Art Degree on the bus.
Simon check out the Purser Griffith Diploma in the History of European Painting in UCD. Two nights a week in Earlsfort Terrace, lectures and tutorials, trips to the National Gallery for two years for a mere 785 squid per annum (tax back on that by the way). Icing on the cake is a week in Florence and Siena in the last semester.
Dinner party subject matter for life.
Correct me if I’m wrong but the UCCi stuff appears to be special lectures, not class lectures needed to fill gaps from missed class attendance. The last time I looked, the annual UCCi output comprised a little more than two and a half gigs of audible content, the amount I normally consume in one return trip to Dublin. I think Adrian Weckler suggested a whole swath of UCC academic courses would be covered in a podcast/vidcast initiative. That’s a big undertaking, especially if it’s just-in-time (daily) and subscribable (iTunes) through a podcatcher off campus. I’ll wait and watch, hoping any new expansions to the UCC offerings are carried in the UCC podcast feed.
Copernicus. Do you know how many exams I’ve sat in my lifetime? I want something that will just pour wholesome fun knowledge into my ear and make no demands of me to study or turn up anywhere in particular at a set time.
joy of the Purser Griffith is that you can simply audit it for two years. But if you’re ready to wuss out on lifelong learning at so tender an age, I’ll say no more.
I’m in James Bowen’s web programming class – I can confirm that since early 2006 he provides podcasts of the regular lectures now and not just special lectures. It is very good, especially when you consider that some lecturers don’t even bother to put the lecture notes online.
It’s important to offer a revision lifeline when dealing with challenging academic topics and really good to hear what James Bowen is doing. I wonder if the files are accessible outside of UCC’s network. All my links to his courses from http://www.cs.ucc.ie/j.bowen/ don’t point to podcasts harvested by external crawlers.
Well I don’t think I’m breaking any confidentiality by saying that if you click on the ‘teaching’ link on that page, his course material is publicly available and the podcast address is in there. Nothing much of interest to anyone who isn’t doing the course, since his hour long lectures could be summed up in 10mins by w3schools.com.
Anyone interested in starting a UCC Blog site on experiences in UCC?
Sort of what it is like as a student or a lecturer etc. Anyone interested email subscriptionsuni@hotmail.com or I can meet on Tuesday morning (only) in UCC.
This seems to be a good initiative, I would say a lot of the material is reusable. After the first year most of the work is already done for the lectures.
Good point… next year James Bowen could just play tapes of his podcast instead of lecturing 🙂
[…] I’m delighted to see this kind of progress being made. James Bowen’s lecture podcasts in UCC were discussed Damien Mulley’s blog last month, and some people such as Adrian Weckler believed that it would lead to a reduced attendance at lectures, and thus more people failing in exams. Having experienced first-hand the benefits of Bowen’s podcasts and well-organised and readily available notes, I have to disagree fully with Adrian’s view. There are two types of students – those who attend lectures, and those who don’t. Those dilligent individuals who attend their Friday morning web programming classes will surely not change their colours simply because there is a file they can download online. […]
In answer to Steve – A blog function has just been added to the student email function
http://student.ucc.ie/blogs
You can start your own by logging into you student email account at
http://student.ucc.ie/
and clicking
blogs
**simple**
[…] University College Cork (University of the year again) has a strong tradition of web innovation. It was the first Irish College to have a website, which was also 9th in the world and also as I mentioned before UCC Interactive TV has audio and video podcasts of lectures and special events. […]
[…] 05:15 You might find Duke when searching for podcasting in education. Google might not return results for podcasts in education in Ireland. People like Mike Brady in Trinity, the University College Cork Interactive team and Brian Mulligan in IT Sligo are doing academic podcasts in Ireland, sometimes with no post-production assistance. […]