The Parents Fund

Engaging Students through Webcasts

Studying for exams was never so easy as now, when students can review lectures via webcasts on their computers or audio records on their iPods.

By Julie Chiron

Fall 2005 | In between downloading music and checking e-mail, some students on campus are using their computers to review class lectures in preparation for final exams. This fall, UC Berkeley is offering 25 courses with a webcasting component that allows students to watch streaming videos of entire lectures on their computers at any time. While not meant to replace classroom time, these webcasts have become an essential study tool for students.

According to Obadiah Greenberg of the University’s Educational Technology Service (ETS), a department that promotes the integration of technology and teaching on campus, more than 50 percent of students taking webcasted courses have used the service. In 2004 alone, there were more than two million views of course lectures. While students use webcasts primarily to study for exams, they also like the service because it lets them learn at their own pace. Students for whom English is a second language (ESL students) particularly appreciate the ability to review past lectures to facilitate better comprehension.

Americ Azevedo, a lecturer in the College of Engineering’s Interdisciplinary Studies Center, was an early adopter of webcasting technology as part of his “Introduction to Computers” course. Azevedo was born in the Azores, a chain of islands off the coast of Portugal, and grew up speaking Portuguese. He personally understands the experience of ESL students, as well as those who may be intimidated by the classroom experience.

“The students who are not so aggressive in class tend to show up more clearly and distinctly in an online environment,” says Azevedo. “This showed me that the technology has great value in the educational process.” Complementing his classroom teaching with webcasting and online discussions has enabled him to accommodate a variety of learning styles, leading to greater class participation overall.

Closed captions
ETS is now offering some of its webcasts with closed captioning, further expanding class participation. This pairing of a text transcript with the video has an obvious benefit for hearing-impaired students but can also benefit others in the class. The closed captions aid in comprehension and allow viewers to search the text of a lecture for specific words. For example, a viewer could search for occurrences of the name “Freud” in a psychology lecture and be taken directly to specific moments within the webcast. Using this technology, students can quickly search through lectures for topics they need to review.

Webcasts of visiting speakers
Class lectures are not the only webcasts available to students and the greater Cal community, including parents. Beginning in 2001 with former President Bill Clinton’s campus address, ETS began offering video downloads of events with notable visiting speakers. Recent downloads include a panel discussion with Berkeley’s Nobel laureates, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s talk “Environment, Health, and Democracy,” and an evening with Brazilian singer, composer, and minister of culture Gilberto Gil. Courses and event webcasts are available for download at webcast.berkeley.edu. (Viewing instructions are included.)

Past gifts to The Parents Fund have helped to make webcasting possible by their partial support of enhancements to classroom technology. Currently, eight rooms, including some of Cal’s biggest facilities such as Wheeler Auditorium and Pimentel Hall, are equipped with the cameras and presentation converters necessary to create video recordings. Many more classrooms will need to be upgraded before webcasting can become a common feature of courses offered at Berkeley.

Podcasting
An attractive alternative to tech-heavy and more costly webcasting is podcasting. Podcasts are essentially audio recordings of lectures that students can download onto their computers or onto personal listening devices such as iPods. Audio recordings are easier and less costly to make because they don’t require the extra equipment and production staff. ETS is currently offering one course, Azevedo’s “Introduction to Computers,” as a pilot podcast program, and it is also podcasting some campus events.

Azevedo expects that podcasts will quickly overtake webcasts in popularity with students because students can listen to them on the way to class or wherever they happen to be studying. He also thinks students, who already spend hours on their computers, will welcome podcasts as a cure for “screen overload.” Azevedo says that having his class available as an audio download has changed the way he delivers his lectures. “I have to be more descriptive and explain what I’m doing,” he says. “I have to do more storytelling. It becomes like a radio show.”

Parents! Would you like to have a positive influence on your student’s education and support Cal’s excellence? Join other Cal parents in helping to raise $1.2 million for enhanced student services and expanded academic programs. Every gift counts. Please visit http://calparents.berkeley.edu/gifts/ today to find out more about making a gift.