Podcast this!
Rather than limiting your iPod to play reruns of The Office and old Beach Boys albums, wouldn't it be nice to be able to listen to lastweek's lecture on Vergil's Aeneid while jogging or driving or sipping coffee lazily in bed? Perhaps nice doesn't quite describe it. Wouldn't it be useful, then, if professors recorded lectures or review sessions and made them available to students, even the public? Inspired by the example set by MIT's "OpenCourseWare" program, which publishes class notes and syllabi online, Yale and Notre Dame recently announced similar plans to make their courses available to the public by publishing video and audio recordings of lectures. We won't go so far as to suggest the University attempt a similar policy -- especially considering we have yet to make class registration less complicated than neurosurgery -- but perhaps, for professors who so desire, materials should be more available to produce academic podcasts. Several universities including Berkeley and the University of Michigan began recording lectures digitally and releasing them on iTunes, where anyone can download entire classes for free.
BUT WHO COULD OPPOSE THIS?
If professors fear empty lecture halls, then those professors could decide not to podcast. Or withhold the podcasts until after an exam, or after a few weeks, when the incentive to skip class diminishes.
And they lecture us about BIG OIL PROFITS as college kids amass huge student loan debt!
