Attended Meeting: Kelly Hayes, Greg Pratt, Kathryn Sheffield, Richard Felnagle, Deb Weberg (Fells), Melanie Kroening, Donna Gaudet, Jeff Anderson, and Peggy Johnson.

Richard Felnagle uses streaming video to deliver effective, interesting lectures for his online humanities course. Each unit begins with a video of Richard that is approximately 20 minutes in length. Richard also streams videos (or portions of them) that the English department owns and which Richard previously used in his on-campus classes, such as PBS videos.

Richard's enthusiasm for his subject is readily apparent in his videos, as WebCT Users Group attendees saw. As a result, the course material is more engaging. He uses a green screen ("blue screen") for his backgrounds. This enables him to present maps or art work in the background as students watch Richard's presentation.

Using the streaming videos and extensive URLs (hyperlinks), Richard students are "textless". They do not have to purchase a textbook. Yet they have a wealth of extremely rich material to draw upon. For example, Richard uses links to National Public Radio interviews to bring the content to life.

Richard utilizes the password protection feature of WebCT to deliver his online streaming videos. WebCT prevents any one other than students enrolled in your class from seeing the videos you post. This is an important part of being in compliance with copyright law and the TEACH Act.

Richard and Jeff Anderson of the CTL are offering a 12-week pilot course this semester for faculty who wish to learn how to create and edit streaming videos for educational purposes. Faculty are learning how to use Ulead (http://www.ulead.com) software for this purpose. (You can download a free 30-day copy of the software from the web site.) Faculty meet for two hours each week, from 3 to 5 P.M. on Tuesdays. They need to have their own video camera. Engaging videos created by Sheila Merritt and Donna Gaudet as part of the pilot course were shown.

If you are considering purchasing a video camera for the purpose of creating streaming video for your students, Richard recommends you get one that has an external (separate) microphone. Otherwise your only option will be to use the microphone that is part of the camera to pick up sound. This is somewhat limiting.

You also would like your camera to accept input from external sources (such as a VCR). Then you use "Line In" and digitize videotapes you already own.

Richard recomments Audio Cleaning Lab software for digitizing music. It's easy to covert your music files into MP3 files for quick downloading (are highly compressed files).

MCC has the necessary hardware in place so that faculty can stream videos efficiently to their students. (Richard has two students in his online class who live in Thailand and are accessing his streaming videos just fine.) The MCC server will stream videos in many formats, including Quicktime, Real, or Windows Media. The new server permits faculty to create streaming video that can be streamed automatically at fast speed for students on DSL connections or at slow speed for students on dial-up connections. The CTL provides technical support for this purpose through Jeff Anderson's expertise.

Richard and Jeff are planning on offering their Streaming Video 101 class again in the fall. If you are interested in taking advantage of this wonderful opportunity, contact Donna Gaudet at (480) 461-7929 or email her at donna.gaudet@mcmail.maricopa.edu