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News

UH signs on with iTunes

Officials say project will help faculty to create supplemental podcasts

by KELSIE HAHN
The Daily Cougar

UH officials announced the University will begin making more use of iTunes at the Podcasting Summit II Program on Wednesday.

"We've signed an agreement to become an iTunes university," Marshall Schott, executive director of UH Educational Technology and University Outreach, said.

Schott said the project has developed over time and will bring positive results to the University.

"One of the most significant things about the project is that it has been organic," he said. "It's a tool that allows us to create a more inviting front porch for the community we serve."

The new agreement will facilitate UH faculty utilizing the capabilities of video iPods to broadcast, or podcast, lectures, demonstrations and other educational supplements.

Jim Wolfgang, director of the Georgia Digital Innovation Group at Georgia College, said the key to having a successful podcasting program is to tailor it to a program's particular needs.

"You need to figure out where you want to head," he said. "What you need to do is take concepts ... and adapt."

Some of the challenges to having podcasting programs, Wolfgang said, include making the services available to the hearing impaired and problems with copyright and fair use laws.

An iPod Pilot Project has been conducted over the last year among several classes in the School of Communication, the College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics and in Technology Support Services, and a little fewer than half the students surveyed chose to utilize the supplemental offerings, communication professor Keith Houk said.

More students may have used the capabilities if they had more knowledge of them, he said. 

"Just because ‘podcast' is a buzz word, not every student knows about it," he said.

For more information, visit the UH podcasting Web site at http://podcast.uh.edu.

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