The Convergence of Lecture Capture and Social Media

Hope you can participate in this Tuesday's EDUCAUSE Live! - The Convergence of Lecture Capture and Social Media, January 26, 2010 1:00 p.m. ET. You can register for the free Webinar at this link.

The impetus, and much of the content, for this Webinar comes from an EDUCAUSE ECAR Research Bulletin I wrote called "Capturing Lectures: No Brainer or Sticky Wicket."

The central premise of the presentation is that the combination of lecture systems and consumer/cloud based publishing platforms (such as YouTube/EDU and ITunes) creates a set of opportunities and challenges. I'm lumping iTunes and YouTube broadly within the social media umbrella, as these platforms allow users to publish their own media and for users to form a social conversation around the presentations. I also think that it is important that once published to a YouTube or iTunes that the presentation can then be re-purposed, re-mixed, and mashed-up - creating something wholly new from the original lecture.

I wonder what will happen when instructors begin uploading, on their own, lectures and course materials to their own YouTube, iTunes or other consumer channels? Lecture capture software will increasingly make both the capture of college teaching materials and the publishing/distribution of these materials a simple task. Central IT will no longer be necessary to capture, edit, or distribute course content. Faculty will be able to decide on their own when to capture, and when and where to share.

The convergence of lecture capture and consumer publishing platforms is a development not planned by either institutions of higher learning or the vendors supplying the lecture capture or publishing platforms. I'm arguing that the combination of these two trends (easy capture and easy sharing) that will prove to be a disruptive innovation. What do you think? Do you buy the argument? Why or why not?

In the presentation I'll try to provide a general overview of the current status of the lecture capture and lecture sharing ecosystem.

The major areas covered in the presentation include:

1. A Brief Overview of the Lecture Capture Imperative: A brief review of a recent white paper by Wainhouse Research (sponsored by TechSmith), reporting the results of a recent institutional survey on lecture capture.

2. A Fragmented Lecture Capture Vendor Ecosystem: A quick look at the large number of vendors (and emerging open source options) in the lecture capture space.

3. The Current Lecture Capture Publishing and Distribution Model: A discussion of the dominant vendor model for presenting recorded lectures, including a reliance on proprietary formats, authentication, and advanced viewing features (such as search and annotation etc.).

4. The Proliferation of Institutionally Sponsored Open Lecture Sites: A discussion of the growth in university sponsored and hosted recorded lecture sites (such as Open Yale Courses) and the growth of institutionally sponsored and managed iTunesU and YouTube/EDU channels.

5. Lecture Capture + YouTube / iTunes: A look at how lecture capture vendors are building in one-touch uploading to consumer publishing platforms into their products.

6. What’s Next? Professors Go it Alone: A discussion about what I see as an emerging trend for instructors to bypass their institutions IT units and administration and publish their lectures on their own. I'll be to interested to hear if the attendees (and the readers of this blog) think this will actually occur (and to what degree)?

7. Some Questions About Instructors Using Lecture Capture Software to Publish On Their Own to Consumer Media Platforms: The final part of the presentation consists of a series of questions (again drawn from the ECAR piece) about the implications of the convergence of the capture and publishing platforms. My goal is to leave as much time as possible to have a discussion and debate during the presentation.

One of the pedagogies that we often discuss with faculty involves leveraging the LMS to allow for more productive lecture time. One method that we often talk about is asking students to post questions about the material prior to the lecture, and then building in time during the lecture to address the issues the students bring forward. This method focusses the students on the curriculum (the readings) prior to the lecture, allowing them to come to the lecture better prepared to make new connections and engage in active learning.

I'm hoping that by previewing the Webinar in this blog space that some folks will be encouraged to participate in the session with arguments and questions at the ready. The more dialogue and debate the better. I'm curious about what you think of the practice of previewing talks (Webinars or conference talks) on a blog. Does this practice take away from the spontaneity of the session, or reduce the motivation to attend? Or does it allow for richer discussion?

Hope to see you all on Tuesday.