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Channel 12 News
Jennifer Anderson, reporting
September 26, 2011
Missing even one day of precalculus class at North Hennepin Community College could set a student behind. But now that same class is at Zak Khan's fingertips.
Khan is like hundreds of students at North Hennepin who use a new program called Classroom Capture. It allows students to log on to the college's website and watch videos of classroom lectures online.
"With math it's actually really helpful," said Khan. "It's actually very convenient and you actually feel like you're in the classroom."
For math professor Deanne Newborg, it's an easy way to make sure all of her students stay up to speed. Everything Newborg teaches in her precalculus class is captured with two motion-detecting cameras at the back of the classroom and a few microphones.
"You can watch the lecture online as it takes place or they save the recordings and you can watch it later," explained Newborg.
Classroom Capture changes very little about the class itself, but it does offer extra flexibility for many of North Hennepin's non-traditional students. Six out of 10 students enrolled at North Hennepin also work more than 20 hours a week and a quarter of them have dependent children at home.
To make the school-life balance a little easier, North Hennepin is the first two-year college in the state to offer Classroom Capture. It began as a pilot program during fall semester of 2010. Students liked it so much that there are now about 100 Classroom Capture courses offered this fall. A few of the college's degrees and certificates, like accounting and business management, are even offered in their entirety with Classroom Capture.
Zak Khan has used it to keep up in his pre-calculus class and hopes all of his future classes will offer Classroom Capture as well. For him it's even better than taking an online course because although it's available on demand, it still feels like he's face to face with Professor Newborg.
"With the video you actually have that motivation to actually learn and understand the material better."
See videoclip of Channel 12 newscast. |