CourseCast Lecture Capture Tool Adds Mac Recorder, Expands Podcasting
Panopto this week released an update to CourseCast, the lecture capture system that's made available to academic institutions at no cost through a special program offered by the company.
CourseCast is a lecture capture system designed for recording, editing, and streaming audio and video from classroom lectures and other presentations over the Web. Captured materials can be searched, linked, and annotated through the software, and recorded materials can be embedded in popular course management systems. The software is a spinoff from a project at Carnegie Mellon University, where it was initially developed and first deployed.
The new 2.2 release adds a number of new features that extend the system's functionality for recording, distributing, and integrating content with course management systems. On the front end, CourseCast 2.2 adds a new recorder for Mac OS X, one that supports audio and video capture and high-resolution screen capture. It also includes support for both Microsoft PowerPoint and Apple Keynote.
Ont he back end, CourseCast 2.2 gets integration with Moodle, the open source learning management system, as well as Blackboard Learn.
Other new features in 2.2 include:
- Expanded options for podcasting, including enhanced MP4 podcasts;
- An offline viewer; and
- Support for setting automatic start and end times for recordings.
CourseCast is available at no charge to educators in K-12 and post-secondary institutions through Panopto's Socrates Project, which asks that users participate in testing programs aimed at further enhancing the software.
The new version is available now. Information on CourseCast and the Socrates Project can be found here.