Slashdot Log In
Podcasts of University Lectures?
Posted by
Cliff
on Mon Sep 04, 2006 09:09 PM
from the not-a-bad-idea dept.
from the not-a-bad-idea dept.
theslashdot asks: "I'm working at a major university in the US, and have been charged with posting pod-casts of class lectures on the internet. The problem is whether or not posting the videos would allow students to skip class and just download the lecture, instead. I guess the problem is trying to strike the right balance between allowing good students to take advantage of this resource, but discourage bad students from staying at home all the time and watching all the lectures right before the exam. So what methods can be used to provide these pod-casts for the students who actually attended class? In terms of when the lecture should be posted, what would be a good time-frame? Immediately after the class? 24 hours? One week? One class behind schedule?"
"In terms of trying to prevent this, here are some possible solutions I've come up with:
- Post the lecture with authentication based on the class list for those enrolled in the course, although this would not really discourage truancy.
- Post the lecture with authentication based on those who attended the class (student cards would have to be barcode-scanned at the beginning of class); this would prevent those who missed the class from downloading the lecture, but presumably they could receive a copy from a student who did attend the class. Additionally it would create a major hassle for all students to ensure that their attendance is registered.
- Post the lecture with a single password that the professor distributes to the class during the lecture. This would discourage students from missing the lecture, but likely those students missing class could simply obtain the password from another student who did attend the class."
- Post the lecture with authentication based on the class list for those enrolled in the course, although this would not really discourage truancy.
- Post the lecture with authentication based on those who attended the class (student cards would have to be barcode-scanned at the beginning of class); this would prevent those who missed the class from downloading the lecture, but presumably they could receive a copy from a student who did attend the class. Additionally it would create a major hassle for all students to ensure that their attendance is registered.
- Post the lecture with a single password that the professor distributes to the class during the lecture. This would discourage students from missing the lecture, but likely those students missing class could simply obtain the password from another student who did attend the class."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
Why does it matter if they come to class? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Why does it matter if they come to class? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Why does it matter if they come to class? (Score:5, Insightful)
With that said, I think students generally learn much more by showing up in class. But that ought to be the student's decision. If he thinks he's a hotshot who doesn't need to attend class, let him try. If he fails, he has nobody to blame but himself. And in some classes that I had (the ones with nothing but straight lecture), attending class would have been a waste of time if I'd had audio of the lecture available.
I think podcasts ought to be posted as soon as the material is available. Let the students use it (or not use it) as they see fit. They'll soon figure out what works for them.
David
Parent
Re:MOD PARENT UP!!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Many, many classes at a given university are not like that at all.
In order for, say, a history class to be worthwhile, you need either
A) informed discussion of written material that draws heavily upon the superior knowledge of your professor (who is, hopefully, much better-read than the students) or
B) original communication from the professor, that has not yet been put down on paper (or, at least, not widely published) and is also worth learning (the prof's pet theory about some particular author probably DOES NOT count)
B is very rare these days, and can be considered nonexistant at the undergrad level for all practical purposes.
A is less rare, but far less common than it should be. It requires small class sizes, which aren't the norm at many universities, and especially in lower-level classes.
I would go as far as to say that, for most majors and at most universities, roughly 2 years worth of a 4-year bachelor's degree could be more quickly, cheaply, and efficiently learned through simple reading, with ZERO interaction with professors.
For many majors, it's very nearly the whole four years that would be better devoted to just reading the right material.
Yes, classes in addition to the reading would be great, but the classes should augment the reading, NOT the other way around. The point of the classes should be to help you get more out of the reading more quickly than you could on your own, not just to teach you every damn thing out of a given book when you can read it yourself for free (assuming a nearby library has a copy).
Hands-down the most valuable thing that I've learned at my university is that, for probably 75% of the stuff taught here (not just in my majors, but in ALL of them) at the undergrad level, I can read the material and teach it to myself better than I can learn it from some professor who's just telling me what the book says. For that discovery alone, I see my time here as having been worthwhile.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Some could make the argument, I suppose, that since calculus doesn't change much, there should be
Re:Why does it matter if they come to class? (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Why does it matter if they come to class? (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyways, my wife is in medical school and this is absolutely how it is done. They immediately post every single lecture as mp3 audio. No video, which makes it a little different (maybe better?). It may be a little different for undergrads, but come on, college means self-responsibility. If a student chooses not to attend lecture, it's their loss. Sometimes it can be a gain - I have absolutely known people who will skip certain profs because their presentation is so terrible that it is actually detrimental to the learning process.
Parent
Re:Why does it matter if they come to class? (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm. Did it come with any kind of money back guarantee?
Parent
It matters only who. (Score:5, Insightful)
In stadium classes, for example, interaction has been deemed impractical. Most professors simply lecture, and people with questions are forced to wait until afterwards and scramble for the few moments the professor is cleaning up, or attempt to make office hours, which consist of a small hour or two hour window that usually falls during one of your other classes. In a class like this, what's the difference if the students are there or not? If they have questions, they just try to make office hours anyway.
In smaller, but still lower level classes, interaction between the student and teacher may be encouraged by the professor, but is usually never reciprocated by the student. Most of my classes, the students just sit there silent when the teacher asks a question, and the professor is forced to answer themselves. I assume this has come about due to the abundance of unfriendly or quiet teachers, as well as the fear of getting questions wrong, or the fear of peer ridicule. Usually, I'm the only one in my classes who even speaks to the professor, let alone answer questions. Again, what's the difference? I'd rather have those quiet people at home anyway, so the teacher pays more attention to me.
Only in the higher level, VERY small classes have I found the reverse to be true. Here, interaction is the point of the entire class. If there are only 10 people in your class, and you don't get it, comprehension has just dropped 10%. (Can you tell I'm a Math/Computer Science major?) Of course, in these classes, such a podcast doesn't make sense, but I assume it's not the sort of class the news post is asking about.
Of course, if the professor in question is a good professor, the engaging, interactive, interesting, imaginative type who we always want as teachers but never seem to get, they shouldn't have a problem drawing people to their actual lectures anyway. People should WANT to come, and the ones that don't want to probably shouldn't be there anyway: they just sit in the back, and cause disturbances when their cell phones ring or they spill their Vente Mocha Decaf Frappichinos.
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Decaf
Is this what the world is coming to? And yes I can tell you're a Math/CS major. You're here. But can you explain why all math profs have a heavy foreign accent, poor grammar, and bad handwriting? Attending lecture is one thing. Understanding the words is quite another. For the orignal submitter, stop trying to fight a War On Truancy, and just make sure the podcasts have GOOD audio quality. Attending class is an important par
Re:It matters only who. (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
It builds moral fibre (Score:5, Funny)
That's basically what this all boils down to.
Parent
Re:It matters only who. (Score:4, Informative)
In this case, a podcast would be better. At least the student would have the chance to rewind parts of the lecture the student did not understand and review them until understood.
Parent
Re:that's not the point (Score:5, Interesting)
"Let me ask the reverse question: why would you not come to lectures at the scheduled times? You're in school, you're paying good money for it, the curriculum is designed to enable you to take the courses without conflicts, and the courses are designed for steady, regular attendence. What earthly reason would there be to skip classes except in cases of dire emergency?"
Let me give you a few examples because I've run into these situations.
Parent
Re:Why does it matter if they come to class? (Score:5, Insightful)
My initial reaction to this story was the same as (great?) grandparent post: Why should the students attend lectures at all? In fact, I did not understand this mentality even before podcasts. There is this really old technology that deprecates lectures entirely, it is called the "book". Books are lectures you can read at any time for any reason.
Now, if there were a discussion or a question and answer session, the student would have a reason to attend. The student could learn from the professor's vast experience, and the student could ask questions about specific things not covered in the "lecture" -- or textbook or video or podcast or whatever.
Lectures were made obsolete in Europe by Gutenberg in 1447. Why are "teachers" still using this method in the classroom? If universities want to make money, they should do so by answering student's questions, not subjecting students to boring lectures read a hundred times over from yellowed notes.
Parent
Re:Why does it matter if they come to class? (Score:4, Insightful)
Absolutely, once you understand the language that we use to talk about language (heh), reading a book is probably the best way to learn the technical parts of the language, especially grammar. That's pure knowledge.
Being able to understand the spoken and written language quickly and easily, and to express oneself in that language in a like manner, is a skill. Practice and repitition of a skill is necessary in order to learn it, and in the case of language, this is best done with the aid of a mentor or teacher.
Many, many things that are taught in the classroom would be learned at least as efficiently through simply reading up on the topic. It may be a bit more work, but it should yield noticably better results (you have to really understand simple calculus, for example, before you can move on to the more advanced stuff, as you won't have a teacher to use as a crutch while you're studying the harder material)
As for students not reading assigned texts: there's a very good reason for this. It is because many professors just teach the exact same thing in lecture that the book taught, without skipping anything (or, at least, anything that will be on the test) or assuming knowledge of the material in the book. Result? Reading the book and then attending the lecture is damn boring. If you read, though, you still need to go to the lecture, because there will be a handful of things mentioned that weren't in the reading at all, and that'll be on the test.
So, it makes no sense in this case to read the material, because it, along with all the info that's not in the book, *will be covered in the lecture anyway*. Reading the material is a good way to make the lecture even more excruciating, for no gain whatsoever.
I'm sure that there are lots of professors who don't do this, but there are enough that do that it trains many students into this behavior. If they already had themselves trained to it, then this does nothing to break them of it (why should they start reading the book if they don't need to AND don't want to?) It doesn't excuse all cases like this, as a good number are surely pure laziness on the part of the student, but it's a BIG part of the problem.
Worst of all, it even discourages those who would normally read the text even without a grade incentive, because the repetition of the same material (not just discussion of it, which would be good, but rote repitition) in the lecture actually acts as a disincentive.
If your goal is to get the student to read the material, repeating it word-for-word in class is actually worse than not ever talking about it at all!
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Just release them (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just release them (Score:5, Interesting)
Small Classes - If they skip, the students will not be able to ask the professor questions. A podcast is just not the same.
Big Classes - What, then is the difference? Students can rarely ask questions or interact with the professor anyway.
If you really need a deterrent, make attendance affect their grade slightly. Like 5-10%. Allow 3 or 4 free classes free a semester.
If the professor/school wants attendance, you really need to build it into policy. Not encumber the technical solution with so much baggage as to make it too much hassle to use. That's counterproductive.
Parent
Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
Another thing, I suspect this would be beneficial to some students who, like me, are not morning people. If I have to drag my ass out the door for an 8:00 class there's a good chance I'm not going to be paying much attention to the lecture. If a student chooses to defer his viewing of the lecture to a time when he's actually awake I don't see why he shouldn't be allowed to do so.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
A-fucking-men.
This would fix one of my biggest annoyances with my university: professors teaching Gen Ed-required classes that no
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Interesting story. I had an 8:00 AM Microbiology class whose professor insisted on not only taking attendance but also having assigned seating... for a 500 person lecture class. To make sure you weren't tardy, every day he would have silly little thought questions for people in groups (determined by the seating arrangement) to solve and/or quizzes. To accomplish all this, he had a team of about 15 TAs that facilitated everything. All together, attendance accounted for 15% of your total grade.
Suffice it to say that I'm not a morning person and have always had a knack for microbiology anyway, so I was rarely present. I would review the material the week before the exams and made A's on them all. About halfway through the semester, when I was taking my third exam--I kid you not--the professor stood over my desk the entire time, watching me take the test. I can only guess that he thought I was cheating somehow--that there could be no other way to ace his intro-level material without attending. LOL
The more I think about it, there's a reason why the tests were so easy: because he spent half the allotted class time obsessing about attendance. In the time it took for him to orchestrate all of those quizzes and attendance rolls, we could've been covering more material. And what about the TAs? The class had to be ridiculously expensive to administer if they were paid.
For large classes, I just don't get the point of even beginning to worry about attendance. Education should be about the knowledge gained, not gratification for the professors or some rite of passage in the form of an 8:00 AM pop quiz. Furthermore, I've seen too many mediocre students use attendance grades as a prop for their low test scores. I say post the podcasts, and if nobody shows up to class just do what any upset teacher has a right to do; make the tests harder.
-Grym
Parent
Just post the damn podcast (Score:5, Insightful)
As long as he is learning, I see no reason why you should try and hide lectures from kids who choose to learn in a different way. (audio as opposed to sitting through class) Listening to all of them the day before an exam is no different from cramming the night before.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
there are still problems with skipping class and just listening to podcast, such as, if they have any questions about the material, both in the podcast and in the reading, they will not have the opportunity to ask them
also, if podcasts are only online for a part of the time, there is nothing stopping students from getting podcasts from someone who has saved them all.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Allowing the student to observe the lecture without being observed reduces the quality of teaching and the quality of the leanring experience.
Attendance should be compulsory as it improve the quality.
Attendance (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
University's bottom line? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you really want to help out good students put up these podcasts. Don't make it harder to get at because of a few bad apples, don't penalize good students because of the bad ones.
And then, there's the bottom line for all universities. Are they still paying for the class? Then get off their fuckin' backs about showing up all the time.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Part of the university
Provide them the info, don't babysit (Score:3, Insightful)
Provide them the information you think is necessary in whatever form, and allow them to determine how they will use it.
I hate this "school" of thought. (Score:5, Insightful)
I treated college as a rubber stamp that I needed to get a job. Did I learn things? Yes. Did I do it by sitting in class? No, I did it by doing the assignments, or just learning what I needed to right before the test. I pick things up quickly and one reading of the textbook of a subject I'm interested in is good enough for me to remember where to go when I need the information again (or to classify the information so I can find it later). College isn't (and shouldn't be!) about rote memorization of stupid facts. If you're teaching me to think, then do it by challenging me (not making me sit in a lecture while you talk at me and I'm eyeing the girl two rows away). If you're trying to force me to learn something, give up hope right now -- you can't force someone to learn something when they don't want to.
I welcome all the responses telling me that I'm an idiot or whatever, that's fine. I'm a bit full of myself with regards to how quickly I pick things up (and no, I don't remember everything -- but I will remember that there was something that I don't know the details of 100%, and will then know to look for it again to re-learn it when I need to use it). Why force me to be on the same level of the people who are also there for the rubber stamp, but are on the bottom end of the pool of applicants? I went to a school and in to a major that had a rather noticeable lack of various groups (blacks, women), and it was somewhat apparent that there were a few people in the school who got there to equalize the numbers and not because of ability. Why force me on their level? The person I'm thinking of actually asked a college level, calculus-based physics-for-engineers professor to explain how 3x = 2x + 10 became 5x = 10, x=2 (the numbers might have been different, but it was similarly simplistic).
I was a TA in one-on-one labs, gave several lectures and presentations, etc. I continue to do so to this day, at my current job. Guess what? I don't care if the students remember what I say, that's up to them to want to do. If the people who DO care remember that the information is out there and it's accessible later, then I've done my job. If all they have is a powerpoint presentation with a couple brief sentences at the end when they want to go back to the information, then I consider my job a failure, but that's another discussion.
Basically -- You're going to do this, some of the students will find a way around it (the smart ones), the other students will use said way around it (the lazy ones, not necessarily different from the smart ones), and you'll just piss people off. Don't.
Re:I hate this "school" of thought. (Score:5, Funny)
I would ask that too, since it should become x = 10.
Parent
a good way to get people to attend class (Score:3, Insightful)
Just post the lectures (Score:5, Insightful)
Take the case of a university student who does as you say, and skips lecture, downloads the podcasts, and still does well in the class. The university still gets paid. The professor still gets paid. Class size is smaller, allowing greater attention to the students who do choose to be there. The skipping student does well, and gets a good grade, and the professor has a more attentive and interested audience. Everyone wins.
Now, take the case of the student who skips lecture, downloads the podcasts, and bombs the course. The university gets paid. The professor gets paid. Class size is smaller, allowing for greater attention for the students who are there. The skipping student does poorly, and either learns to go to lecture in the future, or gets booted out of school. Everyone wins except for the student, who only screwed himself.
Just put up the podcasts.
"bad student?" (Score:3, Insightful)
I watched about 40% of all my lectures at Stanford on a TV screen, time shifted from the lecture. At Stanford this practice is encouraged.
It works better for me personally, the crowd in the classroom is often distracting, and I waste time carting my body all over campus.
You can hear better, pause to take notes or read up on a topic in the book in the middle of the lecture when you get lost -- there are losts of positive benefits from video-based classes. Most I played back at 1.5x speed, so the voice gota bit whiny, but it was over in 40 minutes instead of an hour. What I LOVED was for topics I already know about, I could skip them.
In my opinoion, the premise in education that people have to be forced to attend is completely detrimental to the learning environment - it harms those there who want to learn. Manditory attendance is required when there has been a removal of accountability for those who choose not to learn.
Just post it! (Score:3, Insightful)
How exactly is this a problem? I can speak from experience (and anecdotal evidence == cold hard data 'round these parts) that posting lectures online is certainly not going to prevent students from going to class. Furthermore, you're going to have students that don't want to go to class regardless of having the lectures online (I'm sure you're well aware of this, especially if you've had to teach an 8am class). What I think you should realize is that students not coming to class is NOT a personal knock on you, your teaching abilities, the size of your penis, or anything else.
Another thing that you should realize is that while some students [sarcasm]obviously[/sarcasm] have much better things to do than going to class, that doesn't mean they don't want to learn. One of my favorite classes last year was a psych class where the professor posted her powerpoint lecture notes before class. They were great to print out and bring to class (when I went) and great to print out and study from when 9am Monday morning just wasn't an option. Honestly, do you think you're benefitting the students that don't go to class by trying to withhold the lecture notes? If you're that hell-bent on having students attend, give extra points for attendance or class participation. Or *gasp* grade the students on what pertinent subject matter they actually learned. Let tests and quizzes speak for themselves. If studends can learn on their own with just the lecture notes, let them be. Some students left to their own devices can thumb through a book and listen to a class lecture at the gym and learn just as much as by attending classes. If they have questions on the material, they're perfectly capable of attending class or finding you during office hours.
As a student, I say don't be a hardass and let students learn how they feel they should. If they don't attend and fail, it's no skin off your back. If they don't attend and pass with flying colors, let them be. Don't try to DRM your class lectures just to encourage attendance. More than anything, I think you'll just alienate the ones that don't like coming to class anyway. Don't try to get cute and just post the flippin' podcasts.
This is Tech for Tech's Sake (fer chrissake...) (Score:4, Insightful)
The professor is being charged with educating the student; if he, being assisted by a download and that omnipresent little white box, can succeed in accomplishing that education without a student even entering his classroom, more power to him, sez me. Of course, we all know the issue is one of ego. The prof wants to be hi-tech hip with his words downloadable daily, yet he still wants to see a full lecture hall hanging upon every word of wisdom as if they were dollops of moist angel food.
Now, to answer your actual question. Set up a matrix of authentication codes, columns of lecture dates by rows of students. The prof hands them out at the end of each lecture, all good for a single podcast download of the lecture they just heard (WTF? But hey, that's the academic ego, I suppose...) The code is your daily password, your SS# is your UID. Of course, if you want to give both your code AND and your SS# to your truant bud, nothing stops you except the ickiness, and the fact that the code is good for only one download of that lecture.
A suggestion: (Score:5, Insightful)
An attendance policy? Miss class 6 times, you fail. That's the policy at my university, and it works.
Why attendance may be necessary (Score:3, Informative)
As one of the 'good' students (Score:5, Insightful)
This whole 'keep the bad students from skipping' is a ridiculous stance in the first place. There is an obvious correlation between class attendance and overall grades in most cases. It is irritating as all get out when I get into a class where a TA or professor decides to play nanny, and take attendance, or restrict access to class material because 'students will skip'. All you're doing by restricting access is making students like me, who do go to class and do get excellent grades, jump through a massive number of irritating hoops.
It's college, not a babysitting program. Whatever happened to personal responsibility of the student to get to class? We're all adults there.
Online Learning (Score:3, Insightful)
None of the above (Score:3, Interesting)
You're working on a system to benefit the students. Your main target group is the group that actually attends most of their classes. If you provide a stripped down version to minimize the benefit to the group that is generally truant, you are minimizing the benefit to the students that attend.
You state that you are worried about whether or not your endeavour will encourage students to become more truant and use the tools to study the night before the exam. Students who are apt to do this will do so regardless of whether or not your project ever comes to fruition. They'll also learn the hard way that their marks suffer from this, and having 200hours worth of video files to sift through in the 12-24 hours of cram time before a final will likely hurt them more than help them. The students who attended class might want to use the full footage to find something they're not too solid on. So posting the full sound/video package will likely not benefit the non-attenders, but could heavily benefit the attenders.
As I mentioned though, non-attenders are likely to skip anyway, though you are right, their truancy might increase slightly... I highly doubt the trend would last more than a semester or two, as people will learn the hard way that attending class does, in fact, help your marks... unless of course you can't understand the prof at all. I had one who was completely unintelligible, and used only u,v and x as variables... the problem was his u's, v's and x's all looked exactly identical in his chicken-scratched blackboard-scrawls. I didn't much attend that class, and an audio/video stream likely wouldn't have helped anyway ;-)
My suggestion: Go with the full meal deal and make it as accessible as possible. Allow it outside even (provided you guys have the bandwidth.) Prospective students will use it to see what the profs are like, which may be a good or bad thing for you? As well, non-students will be able to use it to brush up on skills. As to the poster previously who said that this last might hurt the university, I'd like to know how? These non-students would either be in a position where they will never be able to go to a university (in which case the university has lost nothing) or they would be in a position to go to a university (in which case they'll need to actually enrol in order to get a diploma) and they'll have gained a certain amount of respect for a university that makes it's courses freely available. As well, in both cases, these people would likely refer others to this university if they're learning from these audio/video files.
Post the lectures with no authentication at all (Score:3, Insightful)
And post them immediately after the lecture takes place.. bad students are going to be bad students, and it's not your job in college to coddle them to get them to do their work. They have to take some responsibility for themselves. If you post them late (ie. a class,week,etc. behind) then you're only inconveniencing "good" students who happen to miss a class due to illness/etc. (ie. if you miss a class, the next class doesn't make a lot of sense if it built on the previous one.. )
University Students = Adults (Score:3, Insightful)
The ability for independent study is the one major skill universities should cultivate, and for that students should have some responsability over their own educational process. Isn't it better to encourage and enable them?
It is not the business of a university to make students attend classes. It's business is to educate, and attendance only has merit as one among many means towards that agenda. I'd guess this obsession with attendance and pedagogic hand-holding originally came from elementary or high-school system, where the goal of the school has more to do with the loco parentis than with any real education. But it really has no place in adult education.
A "bad student" is not going to start cramming the whole semester before the final just because the podcasts are there... they have been doing this since academic tests have existed, and if anything, video is evidently less efficient (time-wise) than the old all-nighter-with-the-books.
Of course, some teachers try to 'solve' this problem with artificial methods: keeping the chapters that matter secret outside the lecture, changing focus and topics between periods to prevent note-trading, giving attendance weight in the academic grade, or other ways to make being able to pass a reward for being in class.
This is just putting obstacles in the learning process of the students for the sake of solving a non-issue, taking away resources (clear notes and syllabus, lecture material, etc) for an agenda that is not their education.
It solves nothing and makes the availability of these resources at least partially moot. Your "good" students are penalized by going through a hassle for this and losing the flexibility this could have provided. Your "bad" students get to sleep in your class (or disturb it in boredom).
Both groups are going to study in their own ways anyway, and both should be evaluated identically based on their comprehension of the material and excercise of any applicable skills.
Truancy!? High School or Uni? (Score:3, Insightful)
Look at it this way, if enough students are "truant," those oversized lecture halls might shrink down a bit so that real learning can take place. I can only see this as a good thing. Let the lazy people stay home. Nobody wants them there anyway.
-matthew
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
- base a portion of the grade on attendance
- display some information just outside of the view of the podcast (ex: most cameras are stationary and don't cover the whole room) and make sure that info is on the exam
- weekly quizes that force them to attend
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
If they can watch you on video, they get the exact same amount out of the class that they would have if they sat passively in the room.
If there are external methods of asking questions about things that weren't clear on the video (newsgroups, for example) that you moderate but don't even need to respond in, then they can ask questions and get just as much out of it as they would have if they we
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not sure going from 40% to 65% is a stunning recommendation of how you never need to attend lectures, because you know it all already.
Re:None let non-students view? (Score:5, Insightful)
Any university-level classes for those topics could exist simply as a battery of exams to verify understanding of the topic, preceded by a period of time (say, a semester) during which the student has access to an expert in the field and goes to them with questions, but just watches the videos and reads printed material most of the time. Anyone who wants to learn it but doesn't want to pay and doesn't care about any kind of official recognition of their understanding of the topic can just pay for the videos, or download them for free (it's not like they'd need to keep making new ones, after all), or whatever.
Labs, language classes, and higher-level courses could all be taught the traditional way.
Why not?
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Many more can be found at http://directory.edufeeds.com/ [edufeeds.com]
Disclaimer: While I don't attend classes at CSS (great acronym, eh?), I did work there this summer as part of an internshi