Lectures on YouTube and iTunes are like stageplays on film. Teachers who approach online education solely, even primarily, on models provided by the classroom of the degree-granting institution do not understand the medium, and the energy they divert from a more fitting apprehension of the medium ill serves both their students and their colleagues.
I’ve noticed this too. Educators who do online lectures on the “film of me talking” model are still asking the question, “How can we reproduce at a distance the same possibilities that exist in a brick-and-mortar classroom?” As you say, they’re not yet asking, “What kinds of learning do these asynchronous A/V media make possible that have been impossible or improbable in the classrooms we ourselves learned in?”
Which is still a step behind the question: How can the learning possibilities resulting from “fitting apprehensions of the medium” be made available back where we began, in the brick-and-mortar classroom? (btw, AKMA, this is the subject of my paper accepted for SBL New Orleans in November, and I look forward to talking/writing with you about it somewhere down the line.)
Excellent point, AKMA. I’ve been working on a podcast for a while and one of the major challenges has been to try to understand the medium and work within its virtues and limitations. I’d love to see you experiment with this stuff, AKMA. Show them how it should be done! Cheers, Mark