GEOSET is a nonprofit educational initiative founded by the Nobel LaureateSir Harold Kroto in 2006 to provide a “free resource of educational material”. Students record presentations detailing their work or interests on a subject matter. The presentations can also form part of course assessment. The main GEOSET website is a database gateway that links all the contributing institutions and the local site and contains presentations produced at the Florida State University GEOSET Studios. Some of the students who have recorded presentations have been successful in obtaining job offers when showing the video to perspective employers.
History
The inspiration for GEOSET was based on the ability of Google, YouTube and Wikipedia to enable people across the world to access a repository of educational material. Harold Kroto called this revolution the "Goo-You-Wiki World". Participating organizations and institutions are encouraged to record presentations and create a local site to host them. The URLs from the presentations and representative images are then added to a GEOSET database site. The videos produced make up a series of concepts which teachers are encouraged to use. There are many participating institutions including the University of Sussex, Sheffield University and Toyo University. The initiative has also been demonstrated in the Middle East with the aim of strengthening the resources for science research and in China, with Anhui University of Technology being one of the first to join the GEOSET initiative.
Technology
Capture station technology provided by Mediasite is used to record presentations at Florida State University with other rich media formats such as Adobe Presenter and Camtasia Studios. However international partner organizations have used a variety of recording options. The Florida State University GEOSET facility opened a centralized recording studio in the Paul Dirac Science Library. The studio is primarily student run with Dr. Steve Acquah and Sir Harold Kroto directing. GEOSET is also expanding into South America with a joint technology collaboration with the Universitat Politècnica de València, demonstrating Polimediainstructional technology to government representatives and universities including Uruguay, Colombia, Costa Rica and Peru.
