Comments on: Podcast versus lecture shootout

By: Martin

Martin — Mon, 08 Jan 2007 00:54:59 +0000

Hello,
I am interested in creating a unified website consisting of lectures from all accredited colleges. Does such a site exist?
-Martin

By: Jim

Jim — Fri, 03 Feb 2006 18:16:13 +0000

I agree with Casey that college is an endurance test. College is a business and they can make more money by piling on as many classes as possible. Perhaps public schools are too. If a school allows students to work at their own pace, and students graduate at 16 or 17, they lose money. Or gasp, they graduate at semester of the senior year and the track or baseball coach loses athletes.

By: Mike Simpson

Mike Simpson — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 15:40:37 +0000

It seems to me that a stratight lecture ought to be delivered over a podcast. When I went to college I used to skip classes all of the time. I did just fine. I simply had to figure out who was going to read from the book and then I didn’t go. I read just fine. I suspect college today isn’t much different. I teach high school math now. I don’t know how much a straight podcast would help me, but a video cast might come in handy. The problem is that most students that I teach aren’t disciplined enough to watch the cast and process it. I would love it if I didn’t have to spend 2/5 of my classes lecturing, there are so many more engaging acitivies we could be doing. My challenge now is to help today’s high school students develop the habit of self-learning. I’m ok with self-learning now, but I’m 33, at 16 or 18 or even 21 I don’t think I would have been successful with it. I think its a worthwhile struggle though, for me and them.

By: Faking an Education at pedersondesigns

Faking an Education at pedersondesigns — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 14:36:47 +0000

[…] in Story, Meaning Steve Dembo started something with “Podcasting vs. L […]

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 14:30:02 +0000

See, now that’s what it should all be about. If the things that were traditionally taught in the classroom in the past could be done more efficiently through technology, well that certainly frees up a lot of time, doesn’t it? How to fill that time? Maybe critical thinking skills, or high order activities, or in the vernacular of the RSS initiates, more time to Rip, Mix, and Mash your learning.

By: Jeff Moore

Jeff Moore — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 14:22:17 +0000

Interesting thing here … teachers who are using Moodle in my district are reporting that they can dispense with a lot of “work” through the courseware and focus on experiential and student-centered activities in class. In fact, forums and other tools in Moodle are allowing them to “prime the pump” for high-order activities. Great stuff.

By: Teach42 - Education and Technology, by Steve Dembo » Blog Archive » Chalkdust Torture

Wed, 25 Jan 2006 01:48:21 +0000

[...] (37) Tech (36) Tech Forum 2005 (4) « Podcast versus lecture shootout Chalkdust Torture [...]

By: Casey Hales

Casey Hales — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 21:56:37 +0000

I started college in 1972 and went 3 1/2 years and quit. After growing up (yeah, right), I returned to college in 1993. Guess what? It hadn’t changed a lick since ‘72.
College is a 4-5 year endurance test. You endure, you win. I have attended 5 colleges/universities, from large to small and they are pretty much the same.

I returned to college to become a teacher. I had teachers teaching me to teach. I can honestly say most failed. I didn’t learn to become a teacher, I learned how NOT to be a teacher. The biggest waste of time was sitting through lecture. Lecture is some professor either reading from the book he published and made you purchase for the class, or is about to publish and make the next class buy.

My son is currently in college and the classes they make you take are still amazing. I bet 1/4 of the classes he’s taking have nothing to do with his degree. I know I had to take some pretty bizarre stuff to become a Special Education teacher. I had to take bowling! I drove 45 miles a day to go bowling! I’m sorry, bowling is an excuse to drink beer with your friends and act silly, not pay hundreds of dollars per semester hour to bowl. Not sure how that and archery help me prepare as a Special Educator. Although that shooting an arrow thing might come in handy as a behavior modification device…

Please, podcast! Please vidcast! Let me at least suffer at my own choosing! I agree with Kelly, I learned more sitting with a group classmates engaged in discussion. Actually, I learned more from life its ownself, to quote Dan Jenkins, but that’s a whole ‘nuther story.

I used to think to make money I’d start a church. But, now, I think opening a college would be a license to print money.

By: Kelly Dumont

Kelly Dumont — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 20:45:01 +0000

You radical subversive. A student must be in class. That is the only way they can partake of the professor’s greatness. I felt too many times that I was only in a class to feed the professor’s ego. The best information didn’t come from the lecture. It came from a study session with other students or even the book.

By: Alfred Thompson

Alfred Thompson — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 20:35:35 +0000

A university education should be more interactive than a secondary school education. Classes were the student can not interact in class with a professor (not a TA/GA but a professor) are just wrong in my opinion. If enough students rejected that model the schools would adapt. But of course all too many students are there for a piece of paper rather than a real education.

By: ArtGuy

ArtGuy — Tue, 24 Jan 2006 20:12:47 +0000

I’m hard pressed to remember a time when I was in a room with 300 other students and listening to a one way conversation (read: lecture) from the professor.

… but that’s only because I fell asleap.

I think those classes would have been awesome if we had started out listening to a podcast (or if necessary video podcast) and then saved the class time for more hands-on activities that could build on the knowledge we had gained.

Note to self: When I take a job teaching college kids …