A Slow Start

At that time, the recordings were created with a student running a video camera in class, panning back and forth between the instructor and the LCD images that were projected in class during the lecture. This production method was not exactly the best for viewing later, as it entailed using an analog camera to videotape digital images and then converting and compressing the file into a Real file. "Our quality was a lot to be desired" (plus the entire process was extraordinarily time consuming), says Mike Lucas UMASS Lowell coordinator of distance learning.

Upgrading to a Modern System

In 2005, all that changed when UMASS bought into the Any-stream Apreso Classroom system as well as upgraded the large lecture hall with new equipment, including a sympodium, which is an interactive pen display that connects to a computer and projector and allows the presenter to write over slides in digital ink, similar to a Tablet PC.

"The instructor liked the sympodium because he could write on it and annotate his class presentations," says Lucas. The students also liked the Apreso presentations, he adds, saying that "informal surveys revealed a strong desire by students for more rich media enhancements to their classes."

Additionally, there has been a 10 percent drop in poor performing students in UMASS Lowell calculus courses that adopted the Apreso system. "Calculus 1 students overwhelmingly credited the ability to review Apreso lectures as playing a role in improving their understanding of calculus concepts," said Professor Ron Brent. Plus, "Apreso lectures have played a part in better preparing students for Calculus 2, a prerequisite for succeeding in advanced engineering and other hard science
majors."

Expanding to Other Classes and Uses

The next step was to expand to other classes that happened to be held in the same large lecture hall as the Calculus 1 class, as well as at lecture halls at two additional UMASS Lowell campuses. Now, after licensing a total of three Apreso systems, UMASS Lowell is capturing rich media in such classes as Introduction to Engineering, Physics, Community Health, Anatomy and Physiology, Human Nutrition and more. In particular, "it has worked out very well for health students," says Lucas; "there has been a lot of high usage."

The classroom adoption is relatively small at this time, with Apreso inside a total of 16 lecture hall courses. "We have a small staff, and we are not really prepared to roll this out in every classroom," says Lucas. Nonetheless, in addition to being used for the lecture hall classes, the Apreso system is being adopted in a number of other interesting and important ways.

"We also use it for distance learning applications," Lucas says, explaining that faculty in UMASS Lowell’s distance education program are scheduling time in the lecture halls, outside of the 16 re-scheduled classes, to create 10- to 15-minute rich-media segments that are being plugged into their online courses. Faculty are also scheduling time to create full rich-media course presentations for those times when they cannot make it to their face-to-face class when traveling to and attending academic conferences.

"Since these can be scheduled, captured and managed centrally, we can literally create a vast library of learning assets and pursue new publishing opportunities within the greater higher education community without adding staff or making significant technology investments," Lucas has noted.

Lucas adds that "the reliability has been really high with this product, and that is something we have really appreciated. The technical support has been solid. Overall, we feel confident in our ability to schedule the Apreso software, encode the lecture, put it up on the server with all the files in place, and that it is an easily viewable Flash-type of an environment for the folks viewing it. We have been pretty happy with it."