-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Re: Dictaphones
Date: 	Mon, 11 Feb 2013 18:18:43 +0000
From: 	Rachel Holdforth <[log in to unmask]>
To: 	John Conway <[log in to unmask]>
CC: 	[log in to unmask]



John Conway wrote:
>
> Regarding the cost of recording devices, do not most students have mobile phones capable of the task?
The recordings available from mobile phones tend to be of quality which
is too poor to be useful due to the poor microphones available on these
devices and the echoey nature of lecture theatres, hence the use of
digital voice recorders with external microphones, such as those from
Olympus, which provide much better recording quality but are expensive.

Regards,

Rachel
> With regards,
>
> John
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On 11 Feb 2013, at 14:49, "Turner, Paddy" <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
>
> Thank you Simon – I couldn’t agree more!
> Best wishes
> paddy
>
> From: Discussion list for disabled students and their support staff. [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Simon Jarvis
> Sent: 11 February 2013 14:47
> To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Dictaphones
>
> This is a slightly different point, but I am amazed / appalled that we are still having to use the DSA and our own departmental budgets to pay for recording devices when in 2013 it is perfectly possible for all lectures to be recorded automatically and made available via lecture capture systems.
>
> (I understand this wouldn't completely replace the need for digital recorders as some students would want to record tutorials or use them as an aide-memoire).
>
> I am trying to get my own institution to make it if not compulsory thencertainly "strongly recommended" that teaching staff consent to having all of their lecture sessions recorded using the lecture capture systems we have invested in, as it will improve all students' experience, but particularly that of disabled students. Given how much students pay in tuition fees now it is antediluvian that as a sector we are spending hundreds of thousands of pounds a year on buying recording devices when we could beproviding podcasts etc. of most lectures.
>
> On 11/02/2013 14:36, John Conway wrote:
> Forgive my naivety but how does institutional provision of something like Audio Notetaker help a student record in lectures or manage their lecture notes ….. surely they need it on their own laptop, or do some institutions pay for such individual copies?
>
> Regards,
> John
>
> On 11 February 2013 13:55, Alistair McNaught <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
>
> I tend to think of tools like audio notetaker as "institutional provision" as opposed to "personal technology provision".
>
> Obviously moving to a model of institutional provision that promotes mainstream solutions is an ideal but am I right in thinking it requires significant buy-in from staff and is likely to be somewhat patchy in its implementation? I would be very interested to know how many organisations have a lecture recording policy/protocol and how effectively it is working.
>
> Alistair
>
> From: Discussion list for disabled students and their support staff. [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Tim Symons
>
> Sent: 11 February 2013 10:56
> To: [log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Dictaphones
>
> Livescribe Pens suffer from a design flaw – the nib is too close to the microphone – and therefore a recording can be composed of the sound of a scratching pen and nothing else. The actual microphone is of poor quality and bizarrely Livescribe doesn’t make microphones for its pen, only the ‘360 degree recording headphones’ – a strange concept, and universally disdained in my experience, especially by teaching staff as you may imagine.
>
> Unfortunately, the socket on the top of the pen to accept a microphone jack is proprietary meaning a standard mic jack will not work. Thankfully, there are adapters around – usually for iPads – which allow the useof a standard conversor microphone to be plugged into the pen – vastlyimproving the sound quality and avoiding unnecessary noise. I believe some suppliers have the adapter jack and microphone available in a package.
>
> Audio Notetaker is a superb way of visualising audio recordings, integrating presentation slides, and organising and editing audio ‘chunks’ into specific topics for review and revision. It does work fine with Livescribe (after a little rejigging) but works best with digital recorders with the ‘Index Mark’ feature. Audio Notetaker ‘sees’ these index marks and splits the audio recording visually into rows, which can then be married with a particular slide from the lecture. This is very difficult to describe in words, so an example image is below:
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>
>
>
> --
>
> Simon Jarvis
>
> Head of Disability & Dyslexia Service
>
> Queen Mary University of London
>
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