Smart phones driving lecture capture growth

Viewing replays of a professor’s lecture anytime, anywhere on a smart phone has ballooned lecture capture use in higher education, as recent surveys show the technology remains popular on campus.

Watching and re-watching lectures online has long been among college students’ favorite educational technology, and making those recorded class sessions available via smart phone has led to a jump in lecture views, according to research from Tegrity, a leading maker of lecture-capture systems.

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The latest lecture-capture statistics come just a month after a national report showed that students are overwhelmingly satisfied with the technology.

Students’ use of Tegrity’s lecture-capture program jumped 47 percent in the first seven months of 2011, according to a company release. More than 1 million hours of professor lectures have been viewed since January.

Total student views of lecture videos increased by 38 percent in the past seven months, according to the Tegrity research, which credits the bump to web-capable smart phones that allow students to watch lectures anywhere, not just at their laptops.

Sandra Miller, director of instruction and research technology at William Paterson University in Wayne, N.J., said that since the school began using lecture capture technology in 2003, instructors have seen the video program “significantly increase depth of learning and result in greater satisfaction with our courses.”

Alan Greenberg, a senior analyst for Wainhouse Research, an independent market research firm, said colleges that have expanded access to lecture-capture technology are simply responding to burgeoning demand.

“My feeling is that the kids are screaming for it,” he said. “It’s a viral technology … because it helps students contextualize what they’ve learned.”

Lecture capture’s near ubiquity in higher education hasn’t come without skepticism.