Using podcasts and tablet PCs in computer science

  • Authors:

  • Barry L. Kurtz;James B. Fenwick, Jr.;Christopher C. Ellsworth

  • Affiliations:

  • Appalachian State University, Boone, NC;Appalachian State University, Boone, NC;Appalachian State University, Boone, NC

  • Venue:
  • ACM-SE 45 Proceedings of the 45th annual southeast regional conference
  • Year:
  • 2007

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Abstract

This experiment involved our software engineering course that is required for students majoring in Computer Science; however our experiences are applicable to most computer science courses. The Fall 2005 course was taught based on slide presentations during class and work on the course project outside of class. We inverted this arrangement during the Spring 2006 course: lectures were delivered as video podcasts outside class while class time was spent working on the course project and problem solving using Tablet PCs. The same textbook and slide presentations were used; exams were almost identical and the projects were similar. We discuss the conversion of an entire semester's worth of lectures into 65 video podcasts. About 30% of each podcast includes live video of students interacting with the instructor. We also discuss use of Tablet PCs during the class sessions. The students in both semesters had equivalent performance on exams, but the project grades in the Spring semester were substantially higher resulting in higher overall grades. We conclude with a description of our current efforts using podcasts and tablet PCs in a data structures course. This work was supported partially by NSF grant DUE 0341506 [10].