Have we gone to far too fast? We’ve seen tons of stories these days about professors recording their lectures and posting them online for download, but one professor in the UK is going even further. He’s getting rid of in-person lectures completely. Instead, he’s only recording the lessons for students to download as podcasts or video. Students can then ask questions via email or text message, and the professor will respond on his blog.
It’s all very “2.0″ of him.
While some will say that this is a less personal approach to teaching, that might not really be true. What the professor noticed is that there’s less benefit in large lectures for the students to actually be present. Instead, this way, he can focus on spending time with students in smaller groups, where he’s actually focused on teaching, rather than just lecturing. Not surprisingly, in order to facilitate that, he also has a web-based schedule for students to see when he’s free to meet.
[ Source: Techdirt: College 2.0: No Lectures, But Plenty Of Podcasts, Blogs And Text Messages ]
