At the Institute, we value the feedback of our students. This is true for both on-campus and online students. As a technology-forward school, we are already using great technology to enhance the student experience. Services like Vimeo and apps like Storyboard help us deliver our lecture content in ways that make access to content we’re proud of more accessible than ever. Using those services has allowed us to expand our online student base both in this country and internationally. As a matter of fact, we currently have 22 international students enrolled in online courses here at the Institute for G.O.D.!

Before the Fall term began, Institute faculty and President Gregg Garner had a Zoom orientation with all of our International students. This was a wonderful time of encouragement and a chance to hear direct feedback about the technological services we use to deliver content. Students were thankful for their ability to slow down lectures on Vimeo and Storyboard, a considerable asset when English is not their first language. In our conversations, however, they mentioned that being able to read what was being said in the lectures would be even more helpful. We immediately responded by saying we would figure out how to make that happen, and I’m happy to say that we’ve done just that within weeks of their request.

As of this writing, the Institute is happily using Otter Ai, a leader in audio transcription services! Otter lets Institute Professors upload audio or video lectures into its online portal. Then, A.I. bots work to create a transcript of the audio that students can read at their own pace.

Otter doesn’t stop there, however. It also appends the audio file to the transcription so that the words spoken in the lectures are live highlighted when they are said. This allows words that come quickly in lectures to be seen in type for what they are, making understanding things like talking speeds, accents, or interrupted dialogue easier to comprehend.

This week, students will begin to see links to their lectures on the Otter platform within our learning management system. As a prequel to this launch, we asked Angel, one of our on-campus refugee students from the Congo, to preview the experience of handling a lecture through Otter on her phone. After listening for just a few minutes, she realized the value of the service. She quickly stated this would be helpful to all students for whom English is their second language, noting how useful it can be to see unfamiliar academic words in print so they can be researched and understood to expand vocabulary. I have a feeling this will the but the first of many positive reactions to the implementation of this new software.

The Otter service works great on web browsers and mobile phones. It should be an excellent addition to the tools students have at their disposal to access the Institute’s academic content. We pray that using it becomes a blessing, particularly to our online international students!