Anystream Apreso Announces iTunes U Integration and Enhanced Podcasting
Feb 7, 2007 12:19 PM
Anystream of Sterling, Va., announced that the latest release of its Apreso products for higher education has made its mark as the world’s first lecture-capture technology to integrate with iTunes U. The integration is a result of a partnership with Apreso customer and iTunes U aficionado The George Washington University (GW). “Automation is highly valuable in higher education because it facilitates the adoption of teaching and learning technologies,” says John Arpino, GW academic technologies’ senior programmer analyst and project manager for the iTunes U/Apreso initiative. “By integrating with iTunes U, Anystream best serves the needs of both faculty and their students.”
This fall, GW equipped six classrooms with Apreso Podcast to automatically capture lecture content and instantly convert it into podcasts playable on iPods and from within iTunes U. As an iTunes U innovator, GW was the first institution to develop an automated content upload mechanism for the portal. Using this integration, Apreso lecture podcasts are automatically published to GW’s iTunes U site for immediate student review.
Apreso Podcast is the only campus-wide lecture podcasting solution for higher education. Scheduled once at the beginning of the term, it automatically captures classroom audio and publishes a podcasting-ready version of the lecture to iTunes U, Blackboard, and WebCT for student playback on iPods and MP3 players. Institutions can optionally synchronize lecture audio with course visuals for an enhanced podcasting experience. Apreso Podcast’s on demand education makes lectures accessible where and when it convenient for students.
“We wanted a solution that required no special tasks from our instructors. We chose Apreso because it automatically creates content to feed our system,” Arpino says. “The initiative has been quickly adopted because students are familiar with the iTunes U interface and Apreso allows professors to focus on teaching rather than podcasting.”
GW’s iTunes U site received more than 1,800 student visits within three weeks of going live. Based on this success, Anystream and GW teamed to integrate this functionality into the Apreso product line to extend automated podcast publishing to any iTunes U and Apreso institution.
In addition to its robust iTunes U/Apreso initiative, The George Washington University is the first Apreso customer to deploy Apreso’s enhanced podcasting support. Enhanced podcasting enriches the playback experience by enabling students to navigate podcasts via synchronized course visuals.
