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August 2005
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CAMPUS NEWS |
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| Washington College of Law Launches Podcasting to Keep Students on Cutting Edge, Assist Nonnative Speakers
WCL launched this service primarily for its students in Washington, D.C. and around the world. “The primary goal of WCL’s Office of Technology,” says Dean Claudio Grossman, “is to deliver information to students and faculty in many formats.” WCL recognizes that, due to distance and time constraints, students cannot possibly attend all of the many events offered at WCL. For instance, in the past year, WCL hosted a discussion with Supreme Court Justices Scalia and Breyer, a panel on Homeland Security featuring Tom Ridge, a national security law conference and a conference on the Geneva Conventions in a Post-9-11 or Iraq World, which featured former Legal Advisor to Secretary of State Powell Will Taft. All of these could have been downloaded to iPods from the WCL Web site and enjoyed on the bus, metro or in any other venue. To accommodate WCL students’ busy schedules, the school intends to make all audio from events available via podcast. WCL is also sensitive to the needs of those students for whom English is not their first language. Podcast software allows the listener to slow playback of the audio, making it easier for the speaker to be understood. Also, classes will be podcast for students who are unable to attend due to illness, family emergency or other excusable absence. Additional content beyond what is delivered “live” is also offered. In May 2005, WCL hosted the Inter-American Moot Court competition. WCL captured the entire event on Web cast. Also, much like a DVD that has the featured film as well as director or actor commentary tracks, podcasts offer the event as well as other interesting or helpful featured items. The podcast of the Inter-American Moot Court Competition featured interviews with the creators of the event, participants, and judges. Among the judges interviewed were: Marcelo Lopez Alfonsín, professor at Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina); Franco Matillana, professor at Universidad de Lima (Peru); Fernanda Ribeiro de Almeida, an attorney at the Brazil-U.S. Business Council; and Xavier Andrés Flores Aguirre, a lawyer from Ecuador who won the Human Rights Academy’s Human Rights Award for an article he wrote on torture. To subscribe, go to: http://www.wcl.american.edu/humright/mcourt/podcast/
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With the arrival of the 2005 class, AU's Washington College of Law has launched Podcasting, Web site “audiocasts” to which students, faculty, staff, and the world can subscribe. Podcasts are audio files that are automatically delivered to a desktop computer, and then transferred to an iPod or other portable audio MP3 player. As reported in the current issue of Online magazine, almost one third of people who own iPods or other MP3 players have listened to Podcasts: roughly a tenth of all Internet users. A show of hands during WCL’s 2005 student orientation revealed that about 70 percent of students own an MP3 player. Users can subscribe to as many podcasts as they wish via special software (iTunes or iPodder, for example) and the audio will update and be delivered automatically.