“This is a test of the emergency Stevecast system....”
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(transcript follows)
You may be thinking, "Hey, this is your blog, Steve! Aren't I supposed to read it, not listen to it?" And ordinarily that'd be true. But today I thought I'd add some audio technology, just to make a point.
See, recently I was in an online discussion about distance learning, arguing against someone who thinks that it needs to struggle to prove that it's as good as a traditional classroom experience. I argued that distance learning is not only just as good, but can actually be better. An example of why is that distance learners can make use of technology to achieve things that traditional learners can't.
There are a number of examples, but my favorite is multimedia. Sure, you can wheel a CD player or a TV and DVD player into a classroom, but you can add that same audio or video file to an online course that's available not just during classtime, but anytime a student wants to check in and review it. And as you can see, or rather hear, it's very easy to create this sort of content. I'm recording this on a headset I bought for twenty dollars using software that I downloaded for free. Inexpensive video cameras can be had for less than two hundred dollars now, and webcams are even cheaper. And if I can afford it, so can your university.
Now I'll be the first to admit that not all schools make good use of multimedia. I've been a little surprised how A.T. Still University is still getting the ball rolling when it comes to videos and podcasts in my program. All courses I've taken so far rely heavily on textbooks and text-based discussion boards, and given their growing pains, I expect that it will take them some time before they can offer a richer set of resources. But they will adjust, and they're not alone.
Many distance learning programs are enhancing their courses by adding content through the use of multimedia files that they either create themselves or find elsewhere. For example, Stanford University has a set of freely available videos that are easy to integrate into distance learning courses... not to mention the wild and wacky world of YouTube.
As I remarked recently, there's even evidence that students get better grades when professors make lectures available for them to view on their own time rather than having students sit through them on a particular schedule.
So I say hooray for multimedia. It's a great idea that helps demonstrate that eLearning is not just as good as what we've had in the past, but it's at the leading edge of how we'll all learn in the future.
Next up, I get back into the swing of thing.