Mediasite
Mediasite is a presentation recording technology that Ball State University has adopted for use in both distance education and on-campus courses. The original purpose for the Mediasite adoption has been to offer online courses during the summer to increase student enrollments among Ball State students who return home during the summer.
Since then, use has expanded to include other online and independent learning courses, supplemental instructional videos for on-campus courses, and non-credit certificate programs. Mediasite recording systems are currently available in BC 127 and 129, and CA 203. The School of Nursing has also purchased two Mediasite systems for use in its own instructional and clinical programs. The Mediasite interface has two windows—one that displays the video of the presenter and another that displays still images—PowerPoint slides, websites, document camera, etc. From the instructor's standpoint, it is just a matter of starting up Mediasite and pressing a "record" button, then delivering your presentation as you normally would. Mediasite synchronizes the video and still images automatically as you present, then sends the presentation to the server once the "stop" button is pushed. Since Mediasite has been tied into a touchscreen control panel (the same one used in our large electronic classrooms), managing the Mediasite recording is simple and takes little extra work from the instructor.
Mediasite provides students with control over the playback of a presentation. The "Slide List" option displays all slides used during a presentation, and the viewer can search for a particular slide and restart the presentation from that point. While Mediasite presentations can be viewed live, the best quality occurs when students watch them later on-demand.
You may view a sample presentation that was recorded in Mediasite.
As of May 2008, our Mediasite server has been upgraded to Mediasite 4.3, which will include better support for Mac users through the Silverlight plugin, which will automatically be offered for download when starting a Mediasite presentaion.
Faculty members who are interested in using Mediasite should contact us. Students needing assistance with this technology should view the System Requirements page; it will provide some solutions, as well as contact information for more support.
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