"The End of Boring University Lectures"...Citation Needed

[Claude_Dreyfus]

It seems the corporate crystal ball is out, with Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales believing that the traditional lecture (at least in the traditional format) is at risk from the growth of e-learning and on-line resources.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22160988

 

From what I can gather, the information is given to the students via the net, and then discuss them in seminars - I suppose akin to sitting them in front of a television and having a chat afterwards.

 

I don't know what others may think, but that might be all well and good for some school subjects, but the point of university was to actively discuss and explore ideas during the course of your lecture. I may be a little out of touch with lecture styles (I studied history), but none of my courses were undertaken in a big lecture theatre with some boring old f**t droning on out the front...or perhaps that is still the style in the US?

 

Whilst a wide variety of mediums throughout someone's learning career can only be a good thing, is this more of a case of a techy looking to their own nirvana (shades of Bill Gate's comments on the car industry adopting Microsoft 'standards') than a viable trend for the future? Or perhaps is this sadly an inevitable trend that everything in our detail lives will be packed up in this fashion? 

[Ozexpatriate]

There is a place for both.
 
Multi-media content can be compelling - but you have to be a graphics design whiz to put really effective multi-media presentations together.
 
In my experience, few academic types are really camera 'friendly' and filmed lectures are often the very worst of all on the 'boredom' scale.
 
My university experience was limited to chalkboards and hand-drawn transparencies on an overhead projector. In the first year there were lots of lectures in large auditoriums (auditoria?). I have no idea how a contemporary university lecture is conducted.
 
These days even elementary school teachers use PowerPoint and I know of classrooms where all the students run educational apps (fun with maths kinds of things) on an iPad.
 
There is still some retention value in taking careful notes - even if it is the didatic parroting of notes on a chalkboard. Different people learn differently. Some are visual learners and some are language learners.

Since you brought up Bill Gates, you might find this amusing.

[Tony_S]

I think Mr Wales may underestimate the "traditional" universities. They are and always have been quite clever about "marketing" their product. My late father in law had an University of Edinburgh medical degree in the 1940s though he never went to Scotland and did all the exams in Lahore. 

Many degree awarding UK  universities "franchise" their courses to colleges without their own degree awarding rights. The OU not only have their own students they verify other institutions courses.

 

There have been many projects (for large scale education, not specialist subject) looking at replacing teachers/ lecturers with "teaching programmes", they have all failed, with the exception of the Open University which still includes a tutorial element. 

 

I noted the comment about North American universities. My son has just (this very day) finished a year at the University of Calgary. He has been very happy with the level of interaction with his lecturers. 

 

Tony