Lectures may now be found on iPods

Missing a class just got a little easier with the help of pickaprof.com.

The Web site,… Missing a class just got a little easier with the help of pickaprof.com.

The Web site, which is a place where students and teachers can interact by posting messages, having discussions and selling books has just added a feature called CourseCasting, which allows professors to digitally record their lectures and post them online for students to download.

With the emergence of iPods, students can listen to missed lectures on the go or in the comfort of their own room, explained Karen Bragg, the Web site’s director of university relations.

“Students can now recap a lecture to make sure they didn’t miss anything, foreign students can use it because English isn’t their first language and it’s very helpful before exams,” she said.

The main concern that has risen has been whether or not students will skip class with the option of listening to lectures elsewhere. When pickaprof.com was tested at the University of Texas and Texas A’M in the fall of 2005, Bragg said that students were surveyed to make sure this was not the case.

“I think in general the students are underestimated,” she said. “They see this as a study aid.”

Stephen Llano, a grad student and teaching fellow in the communication department at Pitt, decided to start using pickaprof.com and CourseCasting when he heard it was offered here.

“I really like using all kinds of technology in the classroom for accessibility,” he said.

But Llano’s courses all have attendance policies to prevent students from skipping. He thinks that large lecture classes might be at risk if CourseCasting becomes widespread. And if students start skipping, even though they have the lectures at their disposal, “There’s a person-to-person interaction that falls out, and I think that’s important to learning,” he said.

But at Pitt, pickaprof.com hasn’t caught on with many professors. Joe Pasqualichio, Student Government Board president, has been working with Bragg for about a year and a half to custom-fit the Web site to Pitt’s needs.

“For [pickaprof.com] to be effective, it needs to be used as a complete system,” Pasqualichio said. “It’s going to take some effort in the beginning stages to build up the libraries, but once it’s there students will see it as a valuable resource.”

If more students join the Web site and contribute to the professor ratings logs, the classroom discussions and the book selling service, the network will benefit students, he said. And this was his intent: to encourage students to use pickaprof.com instead of Web sites like ratemyprofessor.com

“We wanted something that was all in the same place so students knew where to go,” Pasqualichio said.

Pickaprof.com monitors each incoming comment that rates professors, said Bragg, and only members of the site can have input. “We do accept negative reviews, though,” she explained. “But they need to be informative and clean.”

Bragg said some initial reactions concerned students skipping classes and having student reviews available online. But she’s confident it will catch on and intra-campus communication will be beneficial.

“You now have the entire campus’s opinion at your fingertips,” she said.

Additionally, pickaprof.com includes a schedule planner, a place to chat with other students in your class, discussion boards and a place for professors to post syllabi, biographies and other resources.

“With the modern university being committed to having nice computer labs among other things, it’s worth using this technology,” said Llano. “And it’s pretty easy.”