arstechnica.com — The ease of video production has greatly expanded the academic world's ability to communicate, and has been used successfully as a supplement to the classroom experience. Most people who have taught in the college environment, however, would argue that there are limits to what can be accomplished outside the classroom environment.
Apr 25, 2008 View in Crawl 4
neodarksaverApr 26, 2008
yea same for me. i memorized all those links... lol
johnfluxApr 26, 2008
> And like she said there are no shootings at home.This line made me wince. I hope your daughter will get the social skills and social interaction that she'd get from a real university. The whole point of university is to move out from the parents and try to make it on your own in the world.
snypyloApr 26, 2008
Agreed. University is about far more than just learning. I would go so far as to say that's the least important part of it, actually.
drowningfishApr 26, 2008
How has your experience with Phoenix Online gone? How long have been going there? What is your primary area of course study?
Closed AccountApr 26, 2008
ANYTHING so I don't have to sit next to some tard who won't stop playing with his phone all class
nanostuffApr 26, 2008
"The thought of using You-Tube is ridiculous."Youtube, maybe, but how far are video lectures in general from classroom lectures? Most of the time students sit, listen, and jot down notes. Occasionally you may have a question, however just the same the occasional question outside of lecture material can be answered online. To pay a lot of money for listening to someone speak what has been spoken thousands of times before seems somewhat redundant and generally inefficient from an educational perspective.Distance learning is a future with much potential, however I disagree that online learning must necessarily replicate the spoken redundancy of a physical classroom. That's generally how erroneous information is introduced and questions have to be asked in the first place. Instead you can have exceptional pre-recorded lectures and have them virtually for free.
singularitarianApr 26, 2008
Have you checked out iTunes U? It is an amazing resource.One of the best things about video lectures is that you can press pause to think over a difficult point, or rewind to hear a difficult idea explained again. This is invaluable. Another advantage of video lectures is that those explanations which were so carefully prepared and delivered are not simply lost forever once the class is over; they can be viewed again by anyone in the world at any time in the future. A lecture series can now be a great, lasting work--similar to a great novel or a great book, one of humanity's achievements that continually raises our level of civilization.When a professor uses video lectures, students get to see the material presented not by an average teacher but by a teaching genius. And the professor has much more time to do what he or she does best---to answer questions, to provide feedback on work, and to mentor students.
jab9990Apr 26, 2008
Would you expect them to argue that they don't deserve to get paid anymore?
aljeanApr 26, 2008
Your points are well taken. It is not that I don't believe in the significant powers of these technologies to expand our teaching and learning, but rather that I engaged in a real-life thought-experiment to highlight their limitations if we were to move to a world where we exclusively used such technologies, developed not-for education but for entertainment. Certainly, best practices bring them to the classroom along with other things we fo well without technology, and altering practices and expectations along the way.