I required students in all three of my Fall 1999 classes to listen to Streaming Audio presentations, to most of which I provided "handouts" keyed to the lectures, in the form of web pages.
Every semester I ask students to write what I call an "Anonymous Constructive Course Criticism" during the final class. I don’t use a form, suggesting instead that the students comment on both the form and the content of the class, and offering some examples of aspects of the course they might choose to critique. In addition, I stress that I would prefer if they confined their remarks to those aspects of the course which they think should be improved – those which did not work as well as they should. I specifically ask them not to spend their limited time, about 30 minutes, on those aspects of the course they were satisfied with. I emphasize that I am not looking for a "balanced" critique, but one which focuses on whatever failings they find in the course. I ask them not to put their names on the evaluations, even if they are willing to do so, because I want their responses to be as frank as possible. I hand out lined paper so that each criticism will have a uniform appearance. Finally, in order to further stress that I am really interested in their frank and critical opinions, I remind the students that I have no idea what their handwriting looks like, since I have never seen it (all assignments are emailed to me or put on threaded web discussion forums).
I have reproduced below every comment concerning Streaming Audio from the Anonymous Constructive Course Criticisms done by my students in two of my three Fall 1999 classes. The first set are from Middle English Literature. The fifteen students were English Majors, mainly juniors and seniors. The second set is from World Literature, a course which satisfied a General Education requirement, and which therefore draws upon the whole student body, mainly freshmen and sophomores, with few literature majors. (Although I specifically encouraged all the students to comment on the use of Streaming Audio, some chose not to do so.)
The criticisms are basically four. First, that setting up the free RealPlayer caused some students problems. Second, that the audio did not stream fluently during peak Internet usage times. Third, that some of the audio files were unclear, difficult to understand, in places. Fourth, that to listen to, make notes on, and then write an assignment (to be emailed to me and to the student’s small in-class discussion group) was too onerous a task for a single homework assignment.
How have I changed my creation and use of Streaming Audio in response to these student criticisms? To be honest, I had anticipated them all.
RealPlayer setup is the most problematic. It caused no problem for computer-savvy students, but some problems for most of the rest. No student criticized my detailed directions, however.
In future I am planning to provide an additional link to the RM file itself, so that students may, if they wish, download the file onto their own computers and save it there. Then it will be no problem to "stream", or listen to, it, since it will not have to "stream" over the Internet, and students will be able to delete it at the end of the course, as they will probably want to do.
Audio clarity is a major issue. The sound file to be digitized must be as clear as possible. I have had the best results if the speaker uses a hand-held microphone connected directly to the tape recorder. With this method, even a very basic, inexpensive Radio Shack tape recorder yields tapes of excellent quality. When I used a small, expensive Aiwa pocket tape recorder with a lapel mike for one speaker, I unexpectedly picked up a lot of noise from his heartbeat!
As for the issue that listening to a lecture and reading the web-based handouts, making notes, and then writing and emailing a 300-word assignment was "too much", it should be kept in mind that these classes met only twice a week, for 75 minutes each. I am not now persuaded that this is too much work.
In sum, I was surprised to find that students in both courses were overwhelmingly positive about my requiring them to use Streaming Audio. Most appreciated the fact that they could pause the lectures, or even listen to them more than once. I am continuing to use Streaming Audio, and have begun to collect some guest lectures for use in future classes, always making sure to get permission from my guest lecturer to put the talk on the web.
Streaming Audio is great. It was very stimulating.
I liked Streaming audio once I got used to it because I could listen to it on any time, late at night after work, etc. It was also useful because I could always go back to it. Sometiems when there was a lot of internet traffic it broke up.
MORE STREAMING AUDIO – LECTURES ARE MORE THAN HELPFUL ONE ON ONE W/ THE COMPUTER.
I think the streaming audio was a good idea, but we didn’t use it too much, & a lot of us went through major stress trying to set it up. Also, I think if we have to listen to a lecture, I don’t think there should be an assignment. It was too much.
3. Streaming Audio – keep, yet try to concentrate material more an hour listening to a lecture on tape off a computer is agonizing.
As for the Streaming Audio, yes their can be improvements but I felt that the audio was helpful for it allowed the students to go back and listen to the lecture. Maybe you can put your lectures on the Streaming Audio as well, I think that would be very helpful.
The Streaming Audio help when some kind of information or handout come with it; other than that its pretty helpful.
Streaming audio was easy to use although it was time consuming. It was time consuming b/c I constantly had to rewind due to poor sound. Lectures were difficult to hear. Other than problems w/sound, streaming audio is a useful tool to use to help teach students.
The Streaming Audio I found to be helpful but make sure we use it in the class.
- Streaming Audio. This was the bane of my existence for the first few weeks of the class. I understand you refuse to abandon this diabolical "source of information.," but perhaps the contents of the tapes could be posted on the web in text for those students who are less computer savvy or lack immediate access to this tool of enlightenment.
The streaming audio was a great idea but I think we over-emphasized it in the beginning, and then didn’t use it enough. I also think that if we did have to listen to it, I don’t think we should have to write about it, because that adds to the work load. Rather, come to class w/ notes to [be] ready for a discussion.
The Streaming audio is a waste of time and always caused problems.
The streaming audio is an interesting lecure method but it puts students without a computer at a disadvantage.
Streaming audio was a good tool. It was easy to do and informative – but I am biased because I already had it installed. It was probably harder for other students, so keep that in mind.
Streaming Audio – add more it was good (less reading)
Use of the streaming audio was also interesting – should be used more.
I did not really like the streaming audio, the reason being was because I had trouble operating it, especially since I did not use it before. It got to be confusing at times.
Spend more time on streaming audio – fine tuning it.
I liked the streaming audio & I wished we used it more because I could listen to it more than once and get a really clear understanding of the main points.
- The streaming audio was a little absurd at first, but once I got the hang of it, it wasn’t so bad. I think it was okay.
The streaming audio is a good idea, but there are many problems with the quality of the tapes. Otherwise, it is a good idea as long as the tapes are not too long.
The Streaming Audio never worked right. Maybe, it will improve with time.
- Streaming audio is good. It has advantages because you can hear the professor, pause him/her, & repeat it just in case you missed something.