Skype may be a great example of the power of Voice over IP (VoIP) but what use is it in an educational setting? Indeed, the inevitable first response of the institutional IT department may be to ban its use because of its perceived bandwidth and time consuming potential. But anyone who has used it in academia must surely recognise its potential as a tool for learning and teaching, particularly if Skype interactions can be captured and the resulting artefact incorporated into a knowledge/resource base and distribution system? One of the big problems with Skype is that the native 'free' product makes no allowance for recording conversations.
But surely Skype offers a low cost (15 Euros pa) paid for voicemail service?
The problem is that the paid for Skype Voicemail service is of limited use at the moment (for my purposes at least). The main constraint is that Skype saves voicemail files to a local disk in a proprietary format (instead of the more useful MP3 or Wav) and with a maximum recording time of 10 minutes. Skype.com claims to be 'looking into' alternative non-proprietary formats, which is welcome. Despite these caveats their press release of 13 June 2005 suggests that Skype is undoubtedly putting some effort into developing their voicemail service.
But there are several other ways to record Skype interactions, with some giving better results than others.
An approach I've now abandoned (because of inconsistent results) is to use Skype and a standard audio recorder/editor. I've used the excellent open source Audacity sound recorder/editor, but the same would apply to any similar tool. The basic principle is to ensure your recording configuration is set to 'mixer' so that all sound inputs, e.g. microphone (you) and your Skype correspondent (Wave) are aggregated. I found that increasing the Wave setting to a usable recording level was the source of the Skype echoes which so distracted my interviewees. The overall quality of this approach wasn't good but it was pretty convenient.
I did contemplate adopting Stuart Henshall and Bill Campbell's SkypeCasting solution (see Skype Journal article Skype + Podcast Recorder = SkypeCasters) but they use a special audio driver called Virtual Audio Cables which a) costs money and b) appeared to be a bit of a hassle to set up. But I would have still gone down this route if I had to.
But I didn't.
The next solution is, arguably, the easiest and creates perfectly usable results. Simply plug a digital recorder (or even an analogue one) into the headphone socket and then plug your headphones into the digital recorder. Whatever comes out of the socket is recorded and any decent audio recorder will record in the editable Wav format which you can then convert to MP3 or whatever format you like. Just make sure you check your recording levels before you record in anger, i.e. don't wait to the end of an online interview only to find you have a near silent recording.
Then there are the specialist digital recording utilities to consider.
I tried HotRecorder which, when I could get it to install, did pretty much what it said on the tin. I quite like HotRecorder but it's got one major gotcha! It currently comes as a free advertising-supported version. Users can then upgrade to a premium non advertising version (~USD 15) which also provides a utility for converting the proprietary HotRecorder format to Wave and MP3. The problem is that the free version won't work properly behind a firewall and you can't upgrade to the premium version until this is installed. I found HotRecorder support incredibly helpful and, initially, responsive but they seem to be thinking of firewalls as a shield which exists only at a local personal computer level, i.e. end users can turn the firewall on and off (which you'll need to do for the install). If you're an institutional user, however, and you are behind an institutional firewall you don't necessarily have any such control, and so the hassle factor begins to rise pretty quickly. I installed HotRecorder on my domestic systems and it worked without problems, but trying to upgrade it at work proved impossible. On the HotRecorder technique front, it's also important to start your Skype session shortly before activating HotRecorder; if you don't then the audio channels get out of sync with each other. I've put these issues to the HotRecorder people and it will be interesting to see if they can come up with a solution that doesn't frustrate potential institutional users; they haven't got back to me recently. Other specialist recording utilities to consider of this type include TotalRecorder.
But now we come to my personal favourite.
My recent interview with Morag Munro of Dublin City University about their migration to Moodle used the Skype recording technique I describe below. I think it has considerable utility and flexibility and could prove useful across a number of contexts and disciplines.
And the winner is …
Alex Rosenbaum's SAM (Skype Answering Machine) is a brilliantly simple but, neverthelss, very useful tool which becomes a 'listener' for incoming Skype calls and intercepts them. It may sound similar to the plain old telephone system equivalent but it also has a number of extra affordances. For a start any one message can be up to 10 hours long which should satisfy even those inclined to such mega-monologues.
Even if just used in this basic answering machine mode it would be possible to send out sets of questions to correspondents and have them record their responses to your computer as an editable Wave file when they're ready and without you needing to be there. Also, on a good day, the recording can be in higher fidelity than is possible via the plain old telephone network. Chris Pirrilo has already successfully demonstrated this (MP3 file: start at ~3.30 minutes in and you'll get the gist). The quality of his recordings wasn't great but I guess he traded fidelity for file size so that the MP3 could be sent by email.
But the real killer feature is when a SAM linked Skype account is included in a Skype conference call. To do this create a new account on Skype which you are going to use just for this purpose; for our purposes we'll call this account 'foorecordings'. Just enable SAM's answering mode and any incoming calls to 'foorecordings' will be intercepted and recorded by SAM.
On another computer (and that's the caveat) you create a Skype conference and include 'foorecordings' as one of your conference participants. When you start your conference SAM will respond and start recording. I set the SAM response time to 2 seconds so that most conference participants wouldn't even hear the SAM prompt (they'll just see another 'silent' member in the Skype page).
Now what's particularly useful with SAM is that the any computer based anywhere can host the 'listener' Skype account so, for instance, a domestic PC could be used one day or a spare computer in the office the next. Alternatively, if you're mobile and want to do an ad-hoc recording at, say, a conference with broadband facilities, then your laptop could become the 'listener' and you could use another computer to initiate the Skype conference.
There's also a SAM Forum.
But what educational uses could there be for Skype recording?
I rather like Chris Pirrilo's simple approach but further value could be added to the caller's contributions by using linking narrative, commentary, analysis, or rich media. It would be interesting to see if a quasi debate is possible, e.g. commentary on commentary. Or what about if the technique was applied to simulated interactions, e.g. patient/client - doctor/lawyer? consulation. Of course it also offers a mechanism for gathering expert opinion … is it possible to do the equivalent of the television 'noddies' where I send you my questions, you Skype in your responses, and I edit in myself asking the questions?
And what's the scope for languages work, e.g. students call in with their oral assignment work or variations thereof?
What would be quite interesting would be to have SAM recordings automatically archived in a filestore which could have its access permissions tuned to particular needs, i.e. some public, some private, and some group accessible. In this way whatever contributions were posted to the archive could become potentially valuable resources.
But, that's for the future. At the moment, I've been delighted with the simple synergy between Skype and Alex Rosenbaum's SAM.
The last part of today's post raises a concern. While I think Skype is a great demonstrator of the power of VoIP let's not forget that it's a proprietary system. Because the basic VoIP service is free, the user base is growing exponentially; lots of users attracts attention from companies keen to grow, move into a space, or eliminate competition. How long can/will Skype maintain the free basic service? How attractive an acquisition is Skype becoming? Will easily-influenced politicians respond to the lobbying of the traditional telecoms suppliers and find some excuse to impede the VoIP upstarts, perhaps under the guise of equal competition legislation?
We already know that companies like British Telecom are moving as rapidly as possible down the VoIP road and so Skype, Vonage etc may not have the relatively clear run they currently enjoy.
But yet, is there anything that could be done more locally?
For example, how many HEIs have yet bothered to install VoIP gateways in their exchanges? Such gateways don't appear to be particularly expensive and would enable calls to be routed to non-telephone devices, e.g. computers, thus opening up the possibility of some interesting work (similar to the SAM examples above).
Anyway, whilst Skype exists in its current form it's still a worthy testbed for some interesting synchronous and asynchronous work. But who knows? In 5-10 years time Skype might be the equivalent of an IBM or a Microsoft or even the parent company of a British Telecom, or a baby Bell or three:)
