Lecture Capture Software (Essay Sample)

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The practice of recording and storing of lectures, seminars or conferences is referred as lecture capturing. This is a technique lecturers employ by having the students watch lectures before attending classes. Lecture Recording Software allows for the automatic recording of course lectures and also provides archiving services. Lecturer instructions, student presentations and demonstrations can be recorded for an entire semester or term and these recorded lectures are a vital resource for students. They allow them to review lectures at any time on different platforms like online, on DVDs or distributed video files. Students can replay parts of a lecture that they did not fully comprehend during the physical lecture. (E Smyth, X John, Volke, 2014)
Students are able to watch these lectures after they have been physically conducted. Lecture recording is achieved by the use of hardware and software mechanisms which work in coordination to record the visual and audio elements of the lectures. Hardware used in this process usually constitutes cameras, microphones, screen and presentation capture devices, document camera among others. Lecture capture software is found on the hardware items like cameras and also on the computers used for processing the final recorded content. The software used in capturing lectures have various capabilities. One can record their computer screen and / or their webcam video (E Smyth, etal, 2012, p.45). Microsoft PowerPoint add-ins that may be incorporated in the software allow the user to add PowerPoint presentations. Software like camtasia works this way. () Other software may even go further by giving the user the ability to create branching quizzes. One can create appealing visual representation of quizzes, which students can take after watching the lecture. Another example of such software is Adobe Captivate (Lori Smith, 2012)
The capabilities of these software that give the user the ability to record and archive lectures will vary. CamTasia is very easy to use but doesn’t offer great features for quiz administering and PowerPoint slides incorporation. Adobe Presenter has great quizzing features and works with PowerPoint, can record both the webcam and the screen, but has a downside of requiring all applications with which it is to be integrated to be installed before it is used. The final output of these software may be flash videos, clickable presentations integrated with audio. This allows students to watch the interactive lectures and take quizzes or go into discussions with fellow students in the absence of the lecturers. Such lectures can also be serialized and distributed on the internet. For the best quality of a recorded lecture, the lecturer has to be able to assess the expected results, monitor the audio and visual signal when recording. The lecturer should also have access to tools that eliminate or reduce the influence of sources of distortion like noise. After recording the lecturer, the software is then used to digitize it into formats consumable by the intended audience. This technology is influential and useful in implementing a concept known as "Flipping the classroom”. This is an innovative instructional technique in which the students view lectures and take engage in discussions, record themselves fo...