Rock songs and lectures all in your iPod­ — sounds like the future? With the innovation of video iPods, breezing through a previous lecture to refresh your memory before class is slowly becoming more reality than fantasy.

For faculty members seeking to enrich educational options in and out of the lecture hall, such technology is the next step in providing students the best available tools for their education.

UCSD’s Media Center has been active in providing the necessary equipment for faculty who are interested in utilizing such tools.

“The use of technology in the classroom has increased 20-fold,” Media Services Director Sherman George said, in reference to the introduction of PowerPoint presentations as the “turning point” in the mechanics of teaching.

But with podcast lectures becoming increasingly available to students, the prospects of dwindling attendance during lectures brings forth age-old ethical questions about the relationship between teacher and student, technology and humanity.

“It goes to the heart of pedagogy in the modern world,” professor Peter John said, who teaches Sixth College’s Culture, Art and Technology. “What is the best technique and most importantly, what is authoritative knowledge? It is constantly questioned.”

With an aim to provide tech services in the classroom more efficiently, the Media Center has installed permanent media stations, or “data projectors,” in 95 percent of the campus’ classrooms, according to Media Services Facilities Manager Howard Laurence.

Current advancements in fusing technology with the classroom include the “capturing” of lectures onto audio podcasts and even streaming video, recorded by professors and later posted onto an Internet server where students can download them.

“It’s starting to catch on. It could be the up and coming thing on campus,” Laurence said.

The upgrading of classrooms — with high-speed wireless cable internet connections, DVD and videocassette players, and outlets for a microphone — have eliminated the time-consuming process of tech services setting up the connection before class and have made technological tools ever more accessible for faculty. Such improvements have allowed them to make liberal use of films and electronic slides during class.

Other tools being used during class include the “automatic student response system” method, which allows students to input answers with a remote control-like device to a computer receiver, where instructors can assess student learning. The physics and chemistry departments, in particular, have made use of the system for quizzes composed of numerical answers.

With high enrollment in lower division classes and lecture halls growing increasingly crowded with students, professors are seeking ways to deliver their lectures the best way possible. It is difficult to pinpoint every podcast lecture recorded by faculty, but one professor has built the resources for his students.

A pioneer in forming captured lectures into a comprehensive system at UCSD, physics professor Vivek Sharma enthusiastically embraces podcasts as higher education’s future, and has incorporated it as a key source of reference and supplement to his lectures.

“This is the state of the art in teaching,” Sharma said. “Somebody has to be out in the bleeding edge.”

Dissatisfied with students’ low quiz scores, Sharma resolved to provide better ways for students to understand the physics courses he teaches, known for its difficult material. Yet when considering the common argument that providing taped, streamlined video lectures will result in a significant drop in student attendance, even Sharma was skeptical.

“My main questions were, can students use it and do they care?” Sharma said. “Will they give one more hour [of time] out of lecture?”

With easy access to broadband cable Internet and DSL, Sharma understood that students will at least have the ability to download video lectures with ease. For students who cannot access high-speed Internet at home, Sharma made sure that they would be able to download them from computers in libraries across campus.

“The pressure I feel is that I have to be successful,” Sharma said. “This cannot be done sloppily, but with style. Then it can become a standard.”

After consulting Assistant Vice Chancellor of Academic Planning and Resources David Miller and earning support from the Instructional Improvement Plan in 2003, Sharma received funds to videotape all 8,000 minutes of his Physics 2D course.

The results from Sharma’s experiment were impressive, revealing an overall 20-percent increase in quiz performance and positive student feedback. Most importantly, though, it showed no significant change in attendance than is normally expected in the middle of a quarter. Teaching three separate classes of Physics 2A this quarter, Sharma plans on video-capturing his lectures and posting them onto the Physics 2A class Web site.

Sharma insists that there are two things necessary for video-captured lecture success — a course with high student enrollment and the presence of difficult course material. Sharma cites these situations as particular factors where such technology will indeed be beneficial to students.

The availability of video lectures to use as later reference is also a comfort for students who simply want to listen and absorb what the professor has to say.

Integrating lecture slides of formulas and diagrams with his taped lectures, the resulting streaming video appears like a clip from an educational television program. With such a clear replication of his class from the lecture hall onto the computer screen, students may wonder why they should even attend class.

But Sharma refuses to believe that the majority of students will take their college education for granted, giving more credit to their maturity.

“This is not high school,” he said. “I don’t want to treat my students as if they are in high school. They are adults, and I want them to succeed.”

Earl Warren College senior Kevin Jung took Physics 2D during the year when Sharma first offered the video lectures and spoke with approval for the online resource.

Jung said that students did not collectively abandon the classroom for listening to lessons at home, noting that disinterested students will not attend class if they do not want to, and that attendance is unreliant on the availablity of video lecture.

“I don’t think there’s a substitute for in-class lectures.” Jung said.

Faculty in the humanities departments have also experimented with a variety of tech options. In an experiment to monitor student feedback, Professor John allowed the presence of an online chatroom to be projected onto a screen during a lecture, giving students the chance to ask questions during class and discuss the lecture amongst themselves while it was happening.

John, who has also distributed wireless microphones to his students during lecture to improve the ability of students to ask questions, is keen on solving the problem of the lack of dialogue in a large classroom.

“It was an attempt to focus on the possibility of Socratic dialogue, and to concentrate student opinion and voice,” John said.

Although it was ultimately unsuccessful, according to John, the experiment to try a different technique in maintaining substantial dialogue in a lecture hall holding as many as 220 students was worth the try.

“I was pleased that the students were so responsive,” he said.

Despite the relative support for streamlined video and podcast lectures, the cost of such technology is more than what the university is capable of providing with its current budget. According to George, the cost of providing captured lectures ranges from $3,000 to $4,000 a quarter, for tech service labor and equipment costs.

“Education adapts very slowly and it is expensive. There is no extra money floating around,” George said. “It’s adopted when it’s effective and cost-effective.”