Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Mathy Vanbuel on June 4, 2014 at 8:45

Hi Simon, 

First of all, thanks for this, your comments relate to a post of more than a year ago and that is a long time ago in this world, still your comments are welcome and valid. Then, I think that there is no such thing like an old or new approach: there are only good or bad approaches, and most of the time they are a mix of different approaches old (that have proven their use - as well as their limitations) and new (that try to avoid the limitations from "old" approaches and maximise the impact of new tools, methods, cultures and attitudes).

Traditional lecture recordings will remain to have their use (the cases from Nanyang TU, Fontys, University East Finland, KULeuven and many others provide evidence that students use it to their advantage) but they are not the whole picture. I think everyone is well aware of that and it is demonstrated in the evolution of the use of video in e.g. MOOCs.   

Re the rest of your post: I agree that it is very hard to overthrow dominant models but you can't say that people are not trying

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by simn fenton-jones on June 5, 2014 at 23:24

Re: Your last para. It's true. So many people in the edu, and gov, space are beavering away at what they consider progress. It is always a difficult thing to comprehend which way is progress?

That said, I do think your teams are doing a good job at trying to bridge the gap between the old world - broadcast- and the new - interactive. As are so many others. You know I spend my time talking primarily to network people in both camps; usually public broadcast (network) people in the TV and radio space, and the guys who run the NREN(etworks) in many countries, on the other.

If there is one point of commonality, it's that eventually we will see an alignment between the two types of network. And that's just an evolution I've been tracking since Timmy invented the Web. More than anything, the hardest part for education is getting past the old "delivery in a room." What was the best method for educating the sons and daughters of farmers for an industrial age was outmoded when i was in school. But, as you say, attitudes and cultures don't change in a generation.

Seems the hardest part is encouraging teachers to collaborate in producing teaching materials (once, well, not many times poorly), and influence their students by doing so. So it is good to see the rise of distributed conferences (between different unis), as I see our community is doing. 

Anyhow, enough for now. I'll just point at this one in gov, and you're aware of this one in edu. These kind of approaches are reaching the main stream, so far as media is concerned. Eventually, we will get around to designing these kind of learning environments, which support lots of topical groups; and they will incorporate the Real Time Comms tools like video. As we do, I think we'll see the rise of a compromise between the "produce once well vs. many times poorly" approaches.

Like always, it'll come down to the number of downloads or eyeballs on a screen. I can't see that changing. Enough. Be good.

• ▶ Reply

▶ Reply to Discussion

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• Next ›
• Page