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Our Streaming Audio and Video Project:
Streaming Resources for Course and
Curricular Uses
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With the help of a series of Rutgers Dialogues Grants from the Office of
the Vice President for Undergraduate Education, the Department
of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice has gradually
been introducing streaming audio and video into its courses
and curriculum. This page has been created for faculty
and students interested in exploring the technical and pedagogical
aspects of this evolving medium. Streaming is an important
internet technology because it greatly speeds up and simplifies
the delivery of multimedia content to the student.
Our
efforts so far have fallen into three main categories: 1) digitizing and streaming
pre-existing audio and video materials; 2) online documentation of various university
events; 3) production of instructional materials. Brief discussions and examples
are described below. |
Digitizing
and Streaming Existing Material Pre-existing
audio and video material from a range of media--VHS and cassette tapes, etc.--may
be digitized and streamed. It is important to attend to copyright and fair use
issues when doing this, but there is a good deal of material in the public domain,
permissions for the use of copyrighted materials can sometimes be obtained, and
fair use guidelines may permit the use of such materials as long as access is
restricted. We have digitized and streamed close to a hundred pieces of audio
and video material so far. Examples include:
| Music
Professor/Soprano Julianne Baird's website |
This
comprehensive website, created by Adjunct Lecturer and web designer Monika Wood
for Rutgers-Camden Professor
Julliane Baird, showcases the potential of streaming audio and video very
effectively. It includes over 30 full-length clips from Baird's CD's, as well
as video from interviews and performances. A rather serendipitous but valuable
development in our streaming project, the website's
unveiling in October 2000 introduced the campus community to the potentialities
of streaming technology. |
|
| Introduction
to Sociology Syllabus |
This
course website by Professor Robert Wood includes a variety of short digitized
instructional film clips for which he was a consultant. Look for the Real icon on the right to locate the clips. For cable/T1 users, note the embedding
of the clip into a "Video Theater" webpage with discussion questions.
In other courses, Prof. Wood has created film libraries of digitized film clips
within WebCT, available only to students registered for the course. |
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| English
Professor Joseph Barbarese discusses Harry Potter on MSNBC |
With
appropriate permission, Professor Joseph Barbarese's interview
on MSNBC Right Now was digitized and streamed from
a link on the Rutgers-Camden Center for Children and Childhood
Studies news
page. Also available in Windows
Media format, although it takes longer to come in. |
|
New Production: Online
Documentation of University Events Producing
and placing short streaming videos online of university events has been a form
of university service (in the absence of resources and expertise elsewhere on
campus) and has also helped develop basic skills among interested faculty and
staff. Some examples from around a dozen such productions include:
New
Production: Instructional Audio and Video Materials Production
of new instructional materials has proceeded slower than anticipated, partly because
of its inherently time-consuming nature and partly because of a decline of technical
support on campus. We have basically been on our own with this, apart from helpful
server-side support from Rutgers University Computing Services (RUCS). Nonetheless,
we have now produced and are moving further ahead on a number of online streaming
tutorials for students and faculty.
| "Down
Germantown Avenue: An Introduction to Elijah Anderson's Code of the Street" |
This
film was made in 2005 by two Rutgers-Camden students, James
Flatley and Etienne Jackson, in association with Professor
Robert Wood, to serve as an instructional aid for teaching
and reading Anderson's widely-read book. It was edited in
Pinnacle Studio 9. Further details available at the film
website. |
| Online
Streaming Slideshow and Video Tutorials for Students |
Using RealProducer, Adobe Premiere, and Windows
Media Encoder, we have produced a series of streaming
slidehows, videos and "screen movies" to
assist students in the mastery of basic concepts and techniques
of data analysis. Our hope is that in addition to web-enhancing
specific courses, these tutorials can be used by students
to review skills expected in other upper-level courses,
thus freeing up class time. They thus constitute an important
component of our "web-enhanced curriculum,"
a body of online resources available to support an array
of courses across the curriculum. The streaming resources
at the link to the left include a streaming video made
with Adobe Premiere by Prof. Cati Coe on Turning
an Event into Fieldnotes, using footage she took in
Ghana; a streaming video slideshow also made with Adobe
Premiere, Making
Causal Arguments in Sociology, which reviews the criteria
for making a causal argument, with special attention to
the problem of spurious correlations; Testing
A
Hypothesis
Using MicroCase, a "screen movie"
made with Windows Media Encoder, both by Prof. Robert
Wood; Professor Jon'a Meyer's Variables
in Social Science Research, made with RealPresenter.
The streaming videos and slideshows require RealOne Player,
while the screen movies require Windows Media Player 9.
Check the link to the left for the full list of our expanding
set of online streaming tutorials. |
| Online
Tour of Dept. Website and Web-Enhanced Curriculum |
Made
with the free Windows
Media Encoder 9 and playing in Windows Media Player
9, this streaming "screen movie" leads students
and visitors through our department website, explaining
the resources available there. Other screen movies may be
found at the department's Online
Research Tutorials, MicroCase
Resources webpage, and at the Virtual
Tour webpages. |
| Semi-Smart
Classroom Training Videos |
Two
training streaming videos for using the Smart Panel in "semi-smart"
classrooms are currently available: Using
a Laptop in a Semi-Smart Classroom and Using
the VCR in a Semi-Smart Classroom. These videos were
made by Prof. Wood in conjunction with the CCAS Information
Services Committee for faculty users of these classrooms. |
| Instant
Documentaries and Raw Ethnographic Video |
Considerably
less time-consuming to produce have been short streaming
videos used to document a current event and/or provide "raw"
ethnographic footage of social contexts and interactions
for further analysis. For one example, see Prof. Wood's
day-after video
on the anti-war demonstration in New York City on Feb. 15,
2003. |
Selected
Links Multimedia
Streaming
A highly informative website at the University
of Wisconsin that uses streaming technology to teach about it. It includes superb
tutorials as well as excellent examples of the educational uses of the medium.
Highly recommended--both for what it teaches and for the way it models the use
of the technology.
Internet
Archive Movie Collection
An
amazing resource, including the Prelinger Archive of over 2000 "ephemeral"
films now in the public domain. The films were made for educational, industrial,
advertising, personal and other uses and go up to 1964. They have been digitized
and can be viewed in streaming format or downloaded in one of two formats (which
require special players or codecs to be viewed). They provide a wonderful glimpse
into American life and the mentality of the times.
Bill
Moyers Journal, NOW and Frontline
Two sources of excellent online streaming videos useful for teaching
sociology and related fields.
University
Channel at Princeton
Excellent
streaming videos of lectures and events, many with sociological
relevance. Other university-based sites with streaming videos
include Boston College's Front
Row and Research
Channel, supported by a consortium of research universities.
Find
Sounds
A website for searching the internet for
sound files.
Contact
Robert Wood
with queries or suggestions. |
