Cole W. Camplese

Podcasting at Penn State

Being able to time shift academic content is proving to be an important and emerging trend on campus. Students are making time to interact with educational content in ways they haven't in the past and we feel it is important to understand that.

The Podcasts at Penn State project's goal is to provide a platform to enable easy podcasting for all members of our target audiences.

Our project is essentailly a semester old now and we have seen great growth. During the Fall 2006 semester we saw about 40 sections actively podcasting across all of the Penn State system. We are currently engaged in a formal evaluation of the first phase of the pilot and will be engaged in more evaluation this Spring.

We are expanding the pilot to 50 sections as well as a handful of what we call Engagement Projects. With these projects we provide faculty with a set of resources and ask them to work within a targeted set of expectations to integrate podcasting into their teaching. This approach allows ETS to work collaboratively with faculty and students to understand how we can better support and promote a service before we launch it.

Learn more about the Engagement Initiative at http://ets.tlt.psu.edu/engage.

MP3 Players on Campus

Everywhere you turn there are white earbuds. As a matter of fact 37% of our students own iPods according to last year's FACAC survey and 67% own MP3 players in general ... you could say the market is right for providing portable content.

MP3 Player Ownership by Class

There is a trend here that suggests our younger students will be more prepared for content delivered in this format. I am anxious to see what the results will look like for 2007.

Podcasts at Penn State Version 2.0

On January 19th ETS will roll out the second version of the Podcasts at Penn State site. The new version will provide cleaner integration with Penn State on iTunes U as well as improved access to help materials. The new site will form the home for the Penn State Podcasting Users Group.

Chris Millet Records and Manages

Chris Millet is the project manager for the Podcasts at Penn State project. When not meeting with the faculty engaged in podcasting, Chris can be caught recording the iTunes U Tuesday podcast.

Tim Perry is Excited about Podcasting

Tim Perry spends much of his time working with faculty and other groups on campus to bring them into the podcasting fold. His obvious enthusiasm for podcasting is what hooks our audience.

iTunes U Poster

When we move out of pilot we have the start to some very nice collateral materials. Even without a drop of marketing Penn State on iTunes U sees significant weekly traffic. We average about 1300 unique downloads a month from the iTunes U site. subscriptions are growing as well, so people are visiting less and receiving more via RSS.

Penn State on iTunes U

Our iTunes U environment ... anyone can access hundreds of podcasts within our space. Log in at http://itunes.psu.edu.

Our partnership with Apple provides us with a storage and distribution platform that is designed specifically for managing podcasts in an educational environment. We are working hard to make the solution as integrated as we possibly can with PSU infrastructure.

Audacity in the Classrooms and Labs

Audacity is a cross platform podcasting solution that we have made available in all of our public classrooms and labs. In addition, about 20 of our classrooms are fully equipped with wireless microphones tied directly to the podium machines.

Classroom and Student Podcasting

One of the more exciting developments of the Podcasts at Penn State project is how faculty are turning their students into podcasters. Fewer faculty are recording their lectures and are doing much more interesting things with the technology.