I was just listening to the latest installment of NCQ Talk (ecstatic to hear you guys online again) when the term CourseCasting came up. I guess its one of those terms I should have been familiar with, and it was easy to conclude what it meant, but, as new words should, it got me to thinking.
Picture a student, sitting comfortably in a cushioned chair, learning history with ear buds plugged in and an mp3 player resting on her knee, and contrast that with the commonly held image of that student sitting in a classroom desk and experiencing a teacher’s lecture. What reaction does this comparison immediately evoke? For me, I see something important missing from the learning experience of the student sitting comfortably alone. But I’ve said it before. I’m a romantic when it comes to teaching and learning. …and I have to remind myself that this intellectual exercise began with my listening to a podcast, while sitting comfortably alone in my cushioned desk chair writing code.
I guess the question is, what is it that’s important that’s missing when not attending a classroom? What is it that we offer in our classrooms besides the sounds of our voices? What’s the value-added for not skipping class. An ongoing cultural fear of my generation has been that of losing your job to a machine. It’s a fear that has been expressed by teachers, though most agree that computer’s won’t replace the classroom teacher.
Perhaps, a better question than, “will computers replace teachers?” is “Might an iPod replace me? Might an mp3 player do as good a job of delivering my instruction as I do?” Regardless of the answer, it would be a good thing to examine what it is that we do offer to our classroom customers and the desirable goals that they achieve. The Bush-era question would be, how do you measure that? It’s not a trivial question when education conversations based expressly on test results, might logically follow a path to trading technology for warm bodies.
A young man (higher-ed person), who attended my session at the PodcasterCon a few weeks ago, suggested that one benefit of podcasting your lectures might be that it frees up your class time for more engaging, interactive, knowledge-building activities. I also learned from this week’s NCQ Talk about a new podcast called iCube. Produced by University of Connecticut psychology professor, David Miller, the podcast is a gathering of students, in Dr. Miller’s class, discussing the day’s lecture, exploring more difficult ideas and elements of interest — like a public study group.
Final question:
What kind of new conversations might we facilitate in our classrooms, when the traditional one-way conversations of the past can so easily be plugged into our students ears?
I recognized myself in that last paragraph before the final question. I’ll be experimenting with this in the future and see where it goes. I’ll let you know.
In commenting on a slightly different but similar technology recently, a faculty member said that “students will take shortcuts to get the knowledge they need the easiest way”. Her thought is that this is a bad thing. But if instead you phrased it “students will innovate to learn what they need to know in the most efficient and effective way they can”, well, hey, that sounds good! I don’t want to see anyone lose their job, but if you can get what you need from a podcast instead of going to class, then you only go to class if you’re coerced.
A recent article in the LA Times about putting classes on line had a lot of hand-wringing comments from faculty about students who avoided coming to 300 student lectures when they could get the same information online, along with various coercive strategies to try to force students to come to class. There was an example of a student who never went to class, watched videos, and got a B+ on the final. Well… if the final was a good assessment of student learning, where’s the problem? Isn’t the purpose of education student learning, not filling classrooms? Classrooms (as well as any other educational technology) are a means to an end.
Your question is right on – what is the value-added from going to class? If there isn’t one, than you shouldn’t have classes. Give the students some respect and let them use the tools available to get what they need to know in the manner that’s most effective for their learning and life styles, and hold them accountable for what they learn, not how they learn it.
Hi everyone.
What's a good alternative to the IPOD?
I'm wondering if any of you can recommend a good MP3 player that is comparable to the IPod but WITHOUT they hype and price tabe to go with it.
I was at the apple store a few days ago, and really liked the new 40GB or 80GB IPods that also show video, but was wondering if I could get the same kind of funcationality without that heftly price tag.