Webcast College Classes
For all of its scientific breakthroughs and Nobel prizes, it's surprising that the University of Chicago along with pretty much all of its elite peers, some drowning in ivy and others in San Francisco fog, are so behind the times in terms of technology. And by that I mean specifically classroom technology. And by that I mean even more specifically webcasts. Of large lecture-style classes.
Imagine being able to simply watch class from the comfort of your own room and at anytime convenient to you. Imagine being able to pause and rewind lectures in case you couldn't quite write everything down the first time. Imagine being able to refer back to lectures, and not just lecture notes, when you're studying for midterms or finals. Imagine not having to sit next to the large, greasy guy who wreaks of Absolut and Red Bull when you're trying to focus on what your professor's scribbling/scraping on the board. That's what it means to have classroom webcasts. (Podcasts are pretty much the same thing, just more Apple-ified.) If you're feeling a little under the weather, you won't have to drag your wretched, aching, snot-filled body to class only to spend your whole time there desperately trying to stop yourself from passing out. Instead, you could wait until your temperature fell back into the double-digits and then watch the lecture with a clear, mucus-free mind. If there's another class you're dying to take -- maybe it fulfills some core or major requirement so you're more than dying to take it -- then you don't have to worry about working around the rigid schedule of that other lecture class. Instead, you can go ahead and watch the lecture some other time while you spare yourself a fifth year (the horror) by making those core/major classes.
I'd argue these webcasts should really only apply to large lecture-style classes that are at or around the 100 level. You know, the kind of class where unless you arrive an hour early, the only seat you're going to get is the one next to the heating unit that sounds like your lactose-intolerant roommate after five pints of Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey. 
And also the kind of class that you probably won't raise your hand to ask a question in just in case what you have to say is already obvious to the other 499 students around you. You might defer to the more clandestine, face-saving alternative: office hours. (Despite all the rumors, office hours aren't just some cruel experiment done jointly by the econ and psych departments to see how much professorial auras of greatness affect/intimidate little baby undergrads.) I think classes that center around discussion or student interaction can be ruled out for now until all of us, including professors of Egyptology, have Skype accounts.
Some of the arguments against this sound like this (to be read in a whiny tone of voice): "But this takes away from the feel of classroom like having a layer of real chalk dust cover your notebook. And who's going to attend classes any more? Everyone will just stay home and professors will just be teaching empty seats and loud heating units. Whatever happened to what college is supposed to be?" [end whine] Well, whatever "classroom feel" you think you’re supposed to get you can still get in smaller, more advanced classes. As for classroom attendance, I'm sure that there are students who do value this "classroom feel" enough to continue attending classes despite the obvious advantages
of webcasts. Besides, everything's changing and colleges aren't what they used to be. Just think back on all those commercials for places like ITT Tech, which seems to have an outstandingly disproportionate number of minority students if I might add, and DeVry, where apparently you'll never seen a white male, but that's beside the point. Places like those heavily utilize the advantages of the Internet and advanced communications technology and are radically changing the world of American higher education as we know it.
In a sense, our classrooms have already made some progress. I’m sure all of us at some time have had a class where Power Point presentations were the media of choice and that more often than not, those Power Point presentations were posted online for students to access. Even other things such as online course notes and such are noteworthy. But the next step up – webcasting -- is a big one and just hasn’t been made by most universities. However, it is important to take note of the universities that have made the leap forward and stand as shining models for the rest to follow.
Berkeley’s a big one. They have a whole section of their website devoted to webcasts of class lectures. Some come as streaming audio, others as downloadable MP3s, and others even as streaming video. Whatever their form, all of them thoroughly represent the 21st century college classroom. You can even subscribe to RSS feeds and access lectures without even being enrolled at the university.
I’ll mention very quickly just so nobody says it first and then points a finger at me and says, "Hah! Got you!" that our foggy San Francisco friend does make good use of iTunes to broadcasts some of its more famous lectures. But this isn’t quite the classroom usage I had in mind.
A little more searching on the Google and you start to realize that it’s really only the undergrads that got the short side of the stick. Most law schools, b-schools, anything-but-undergrad-schools more than provide for this kind of technology. It’s pretty much fully integrated and standard for them. So why are college kids still left all the way back in the 1990s? Why do we have to continue suffering while law school and business school hotshots get to sip on Cabernet Sauvignon while placidly absorbing the teachings of the world’s greatests, at their leisure, undisturbed? (Okay, so college students might opt for something other than Cabernet Sauvignon. By the way, I have no idea how to even pronounce that.)
My message to our university presidents is simple: Put down your Cabernet Sauvignon and start considering smarter, more efficient, more effective means of higher education. For example, webcasts. And please help me find a job.
(By the way, you really should Google "webcasts". From the results it looks like everyone from the UN to NASA to Russia is doing it.)
1 comment:
Ha! Here speaks the whiney voice.
Objections to podcast/videocast lectures:
1. WE ARE GOING TO GET SO FAT
America's already mammoth-esque obese population will increase if we are too lazy to even to wobble to class. Who says we will actually watch the videocasts if there is no specific time in which we must watch them. Self-discipline? Maybe, but most of us will be watching Smallville, gorging ourselves with doritos and the obligatory side of flan, instead of listening to Professor X Nobel Laureate unveil the secrets of the universe.
2. YOU SAY ONLY BIG CLASSES, I SAY MY ASS(ES)
You say that these webcasts will be limited to only big lecture classes. We are lucky enough to be at the University of Chicago where large lecture classes are usually never over 100 people. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) The Universities you mentioned have lecture classes filling up to 500 kids. That's a different story.In our lecture classes, there are always a few questions, even if they come out of the ocean of faces currently absorbing this week's installation of O-Chem. Going to office hours is a hassle.
While we're at it, why not just podcast office hours? That way, we'll never have to see another Professor face to face (in real life) every again. Thank God! They smell anyway. Especially those paleontologists, who smell as if they've been rolling around in a puddle of primordial goo.
Smelliness aside, I find it hard to believe that once we introduce webcasted classes it won't carry over to small-sized classes. Following our current trend of exponentially rising laziness, the arguments will go something like this:(in a very WHINEY voice) "But I was too sick to get out of bed...and nobody else took notes...it's so unfair! Woe is me!" I think webcasting the small, intimate, discussion-oriented classes is the worst thing that could happen and would have huge consequences to the University and academia in general.
3. THE CLASSROOM FEEL OBJECTION (oo! i said it!)
At the University of Chicago, we are lucky to have a huge number of amazing faculty, champions in their field and sometimes, but only sometimes, the odd nobel laureate. The speed with which someone like Steven Levitt or Martha McClintock's classes fill up should be enough to prove that people enjoy being IN THE PRESENCE of these charismatic, brilliant speakers. There's something about seeing someone face to face, in reality, and being able to follow their thought-processes - especially those of brilliant people whom you admire - that is much diminished if not destroyed by watching it on a screen far, far away. You may as well buy the professor's book instead if you don't want the "classroom feel".
Because introducing webcasts is basically like learning from a relatively animated textbook - it's not interactive and petrified in time.
Why do people watch live music instead of listening to it at home, you know?
There's a reason why we prefer to talk in person to those we care about - and even those we don't care about that much.
4. LAZINESS REVISITED
It seems to me as if the only reason you want webcasts is out of convenience(and in order to avoid the greasy guy sitting next to you). So you don't have to get out of bed. In fact, at second glance it seems that, from a lazy person's standpoint, it actually will require MORE energy to first make yourself sit down and watch the webcast (while smallville beckons with clark's newest super-power: the power to get out of bed! woow!!!) and to actually pay attention to the webcast while people are running in and out of your room.
Or even if you're completely alone, you're going to be to IM-ing, searching the Google, maybe even the Booble, at the same time - a screen is just not as riveting as a real live person. This is not to say that real live professors are always riveting, but you know what I mean.
And in terms of not going to class because of your busy schedule - you have enrolled at the University of Chicago for a reason. You're here to learn. Therefore, your classes (when they meet, not when you study for them) should have priority in your schedule. You're paying friggin' 40 thousand to take these classes. How is one hour in your day going to get in the way of your important plans? Unless, of course, you're planning to take over the world, pinky-and-the-brain-style.
And if you want to refer back to the lectures for mid-terms, bring your own recording device - most computers have one.
5. AGAINST THE iUNIVERSITY
To sum up, webcasts are no good for a relatively small university like ours. Maybe for squirrels. So, my whiney voice rejects your whiney voice. Who's whiney now?
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