Wrong Questions
With new technologies it is very easy to place a lecture online for the world to see. But rather than figuring out how to get students to attend a lecture in class and not skip to watch at their leisure, we should be thinking of ways to restructure the class. If the professor believes that his or her lectures are valuable above and beyond the readings, then he or she should pre-record and upload them. Then, rather than using gathered time to transfer information, the professor and students could engage in higher-order thinking activities.
This has implications for the church. Though with the church we need to remember those who are not able to easily access this information.
September 13th, 2006 at 7:53 am
I like your idea! I’ve seen many lectures available online in both video form and as podcasts. With those time-shifted formats, why would students possibly want to wake up at 8 or 9 a.m. to go to class? Only if there were something going on other than mere “transfer of information”, as you suggest.