COLTT 2012

One of the best-kept secrets for educational technology conferences is held annually in Boulder. The Colorado Learning and Teaching with Technology (COLTT) conference is now in its 15th year and held on the CU-Boulder campus. This year all sessions were held at the beautiful Wolf Law Building.

My time at this year's conference was limited due to prior commitments. However, attendance time was well spent. Hanna Yang and Lauren Scharff from the USAF Academy presented on results of their research into use of video feedback. The subjects were pre-law students that were videotaped presenting oral arguments of a case. Yang and Scharff interjected captions throughout the video playback so students would know precisely when they did something right or wrong.  The overall results were positive, with student subjects grateful for the instant feedback and the ability of knowing the exact moments of significant instances, such as a fidget or a needless utterance (ums, ahs, etc). They used a number of software programs to edit the videos including Jing and Camtasia.

I had a good discussion with our Adobe representative. With iOS not supporting Flash video playback, Adobe is coming under increasing pressure to find alternative methods for creating video content supporting playback on devices such as the iPad. This is especially true with Presenter, a favorite software product with RHCHP faculty due to it's simple design and useful features. The latest version is getting closer to a resolution but appears to still miss the mark for iOS compatibility. RHCHP is getting around the issue by posting all video content to Kaltura, our cloud-based video repository. However, this does not address the issue with Presenter files that are PP-based rather than video. Adobe reps will be on campus September 19th and I'm sure this will be a topic of discussion.

I also had a brief chat with Al Powell from Colorado State University. Al has extensive experience in lecture capture systems, something that RHCHP is just now beginning to investigate. I'll be connecting with him at a later date as the RHCHP Lecture Capture Task Force makes their recommendations and begins piloting systems in spring 2013.