Tama’s eLearning Blog

Henry E. Schaffer has posted an item called “Online material decreases class attendance” in the Educause blogs.  His intention was to stir debate, so here’s my take:

*Good* lectures will still attract students in a face to face capacity, bad lectures won’t. The technology can’t suddenly make all lectures or lecturers better and, in all fairness, many lecturers only have a crowd in front of them because there’s no other way to access that information. Given the opportunity to sit through 45 or 90 minutes of some lectures, or skim through them as a podcast, I know I’d choose the latter in several cases.

*However*, a good lecture engages the group, often builds a class dynamic, and is both informative and engaging … those lectures will always have good attendance, regardless of which other media the lectures are also available in. The challenge for lecturers is to try and make sure their lectures are as good as they can be and podcasting (or, if we must use the name, coursecasting) forces a level of scrutiny far too many lecturers have managed to avoid for too long. (In my opinion, at least…)

In a nutshell, if having your lectures available as podcasts radidly shrinks your lecture attendence (and you’re not lecturing in a horror spot like 9am on a Monday, or 4pm on a Friday), perhaps it’s time to think about how you give a lecture, rather than trying to blame the technology! (And there endth the rant…)