A few weeks ago I did a screencast of how to use the MicroMemo to record podcasts. It’s a fairly easy process to set up, but there have been some pitfalls. We decided we would try to implement these into the DNA of lecture capture as well as podcasts for faculty. Part of my job is to be able to teach and empower faculty with tools that will help enhance their teaching. I volunteered to go to their classrooms and record it for them, show them the tool and finally show them how to produce and upload the files to iTunes U.
Case Study 1: Faculty is Out
One faculty mentioned that a number of students would be off campus and she was having a guest lecturer. She asked for it to be recorded and put up into iTunes U. No problem. She filled out our “Media Capture Request Form”. I tested the MicroMemo with a lav mic. It worked flawlessly. Just before I left, I swapped out the MicroMemo that I had been using with a new one that I had just bought. I went to the classroom, clipped the mic to the faculty, clicked record, sat in the class, and took the Nano back to the office to upload it. To my horror, the MicroMemo had recorded 45 minutes of nothing. We troubleshot things and found out that the new unit I had bought had some sort of short in it. I apologized to the faculty for my mistake and assured them that we were working to make things reliable. It won’t happen again. Strike one.
Case Study #2: Energetic Faculty
The second case study was less than a week later with a member of the same department. She was teaching an online class with a face to face orientation meeting for freshman. Her goal was to walk through Blackboard, how an online course flows, and help new students make the transition to taking a course online. The goal to record the lecture was for some of the students who were going to miss the orientation. Again I tested and re-tested to make sure I didn’t make the same mistakes twice. Minutes before the lecture I tested it and found it working. Again I mic’d up the faculty, clicked record, and after 45 minutes, got the Nano. It had an error message saying “Disk Error: No Disk Space Available”. I had run out of space on the Nano. Strike Two.
There are also little things to make sure to remember when using the MicroMemo. On the bottom it has a switch. You can select “mic”, “line”, and “speaker”. Sometimes in the testing process you can have it selected to “mic”, record, then switch to “speaker” to listen and forget to switch it back to “mic”. I’ve made this mistake in testing. So, it’s important to make sure the Nano is empty, account for disk space, test all of the equipment together, and make sure that all switches are set when it’s time to record. The jury is still out on the MicroMemo. If we can have some successes, we could possibly buy a bunch with MicroMemos for faculty to use and batch capture content accross the board. However, if we lose confidence in the MicroMemo or if the faculty lose confidence, we’re sunk. So, we’re going to give it one more try. Third strike and MicroMemo is out.
Have any of you used this process? Are there other low-cost, ease of use faculty capture tools that you use?