With modern technology and services, it's now possible to host professional grade webcasts on a small budget. At the University of Pennsylvania, we produce weekly webcasts in our Modern and Contemporary Poetry MOOC. The webcasts are done in regular room on a modest 3-camera setup, comprised of only a fraction of a "professional" studio’s gear.
Notebook / Blog
Rather than a blog, I like to think of this space as a personal notebook that is open and available for all to see. If I'm already keeping notes for my own various uses, why not share them publicly and hopefully provide value to others as well?
At the University of Pennsylvania, we’ve been offering for-credit online courses for many years. However, the landscape of online course offerings became much more interesting in 2012 when the University partnered with the online course platform, Coursera, to start offering select courses as MOOCs -- not-for-credit courses that are free and open to the world.
As an I.T. Professional at the University of Pennsylvania, I’ve been lucky to work on Al Filreis’ 10-week Modern and Contemporary Poetry MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) on Coursera. The free, not-for-credit course is comprised of nearly 100 pre-recorded video lectures, weekly quizzes and 4 writing assignments.
The Wikipedia article for "webcast" states that "webcasting usually refers to non-interactive linear streams or events" and that "essentially, webcasting is broadcasting over the internet." There is absolutely no reason for webcasts to be "non-interactive." You're doing yourself and your audience a disservice if this is the case. At the University of Pennsylvania, we've done dozens of interactive webcasts, trying many new tools along the way.
With Google Hangouts On Air, you can host and broadcast live discussions and performances to the world. You can also embed the live video player into a webpage with an html code, and later edit and share a copy of the broadcast. At the University of Pennsylvania, I've done dozens of complex, large-scale live webcasts using Google Hangouts on Air. Here, I share my findings.