Mr. Hibbs is apparently confused by my gender as well as by the dynamics of good instruction:
"perhaps the lady doth protest too much?>> He asked: and answered his own question: <<> ><<Would the students (attendees) have learned more if they had > >listened, in advance, to the lecture at a time convenient to them? Or > >if they had read the text commentary and looked at the links provided > >- all well in advance of the physical meeting place?>> This is indeed looking to technology to fix education, on the assumption that the problem is finding ways for education to help student "learn more": the quantitative fix. The very notion of learning "more" is the beginning of a profound misreading of the problem of education. Many of the nonacademics who decide to advise the academy assume that the lecture is a mechanical performance that can, as suggested here, be recorded in advance with no loss of quality or impact: indeed, that the student would "learn more" if they could rewind the tape, review difficult ideas, etc. This is a very old, endlessly repeated mistake, and would that there was some way to end its reappearance. A good analysis of this mistake is Chapter 3 of Hubert Dreyfus' ON THE INTERNET, titled "Disembodied Telepresence and the Remoteness of the Real." The good lecturer picks up cues from the students in front of him, and varies his rhythm, repeats ideas, invites questions, according to those cues. David Blair, a robe, who has taught extensively via interactiver television as well as lectured conventionally, makes interesting and important points in the Dreyfus chapter: "In the first place I am often aware of a lot of things going on in the class in addition to a student actually asking a question or commenting. Sometiimes when a student asks a question I can see, peripherally, other students nodding their heads in agreement with the question. This would indicate that the student's question is important to the rest of the class so I will take more care in answering it fully." (This kind of adjustment, of course, cannot take place with a recorded lecture.) "...Second, as I lecture, I'm drawn to the point of view that is most comfortable or informative for me--a point of view that may be different from lecture to lecture or even may change during during a lecture. Perhaps this is simlar to Merleau-Ponty's notion of 'maximum rip.' To find this pooint of view requires that I be able to move around during the lecture sometimes approaching the students closely , sometimes moving away." And much more. Perhaps an important point to make is that we might usefully distinguish using technology to bring learning to those place in the world wherelive instruction is difficult or impossible and giving advice to the Harvards and the Sorbonnes as to how they might improve instruction by videotaping lectures. To repeat the original point of the post in question: the way to improve online education is to listen to the technology, learn its genius and its limitations, and develop instruction that emerges from that genius rather than by mimicking and "improving" the methods of face-to-face instruction. Steve Eskow [EMAIL PROTECTED] _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list [email protected] http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
