The excerpt below reveals two truths:
- Students will flock to the convenience of web-based self-service.
- Students will avoid a service -- such as a real-time, "live" lecture -- when a service of identical value can be delivered more conveniently via the self-service web. The examples described in the excerpt suggest that students find that live lectures don't add enough value to their web-accessible clones to justify attending class.
When will we stop bolting technology onto traditional instructional practices and start using technology to redesign instruction to be not only more convenient, but also more effective and engaging and less expensive?
More undergrads playing hooky when class notes go online. Some profs pulling materials from Web By Stuart Silverstein, Los Angeles Times, January 23, 2006
Americ Azevedo taught an Introduction to Computers class at the University of California, Berkeley, last semester that featured some of the hotter options in educational technology. By visiting the course's Web sites, the 200 students could download audio recordings or watch digital videos of the lectures, as well as read the instructor's detailed lecture notes and participate in online discussions. But there was one big problem: So many of the undergraduates relied on the technology that, at times, only 20 or so actually showed up for class. "It was demoralizing," Azevedo said. "Getting students out of their media bubble to be here is getting progressively harder." Skipping classes, particularly big lectures where an absence is likely to go undetected, is a time-honored tradition among college undergraduates. These days, however, some professors are witnessing a spurt in absenteeism after adopting technologies that were envisioned as learning aids. As many academics embrace the electronic innovations, others are pushing back. To deter no-shows, they are reverting to lower-tech tactics such as giving more pop quizzes or slashing online offerings. "Too much online instruction is a bad thing," said Terre Allen, a communication studies scholar and director of a center that provides teaching advice to professors at California State University Long Beach. This last term, Allen experimented with posting extensive lecture notes online for her undergraduate course, Language and Behavior. One goal was to relieve students of the burden of furiously scribbling notes, freeing them to focus on the lectures' substance. Read more ...
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