Monthly Archives: February 2009

USU OCW Receives Some Attention at Home

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John said that a prophet hath no honour in his own country.

While USU OCW has earned international attention in some of the world’s greatest media outlets, it has only just this week hit USU’s own news service, as they recognize in the story OCW Receiving National, International Recognition. It’s great to see the institution paying some attention to this wonderful program.

While the administration may not know it, according to Google USU OCW is the 4th most useful / important / interesting thing happening at USU, only ranking behind the university home page, the athletics page, and the extension page. No USU college or department outranks USU OCW in the eyes of Google. Therefore no USU college or department outranks OCW in the eyes of millions of individuals around the world who depend on Google to help it understand what is useful, interesting, and important.

In a time when huge financial pressures are squeezing every university’s budget, here’s hoping that USU will recognize the long-term value of USU OCW.

Skip Class, Do Better

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iTunes University and the classroom: Can podcasts replace Professors?

iTunes University, a website with downloadable educational podcasts, can provide students the opportunity to obtain professors’ lectures when students are unable to attend class. To determine the effectiveness of audio lectures in higher education, undergraduate general psychology students participated in one of two conditions. In the lecture condition, participants listened to a 25-min lecture given in person by a professor using PowerPoint slides. Copies of the slides were given to aid note-taking. In the podcast condition, participants received a podcast of the same lecture along with the PowerPoint handouts. Participants in both conditions were instructed to keep a running log of study time and activities used in preparing for an exam. One week from the initial session students returned to take an exam on lecture content. Results indicated that students in the podcast condition who took notes while listening to the podcast scored significantly higher than the lecture condition. The impact of mobile learning on classroom performance is discussed.

If you don’t have access to Computers & Education Volume 52, Issue 3, April 2009, Pages 617-623, see the writeups in New Scientist and the New York Times.

Obviously we need replication studies. But it begs the question – if this finding were to be relatively stable, would higher education pay attention, or ignore its own research?