The digital divide, as discussed by Hand (2008, p34) is alive and well between education institutions also.
Back to work and study. I read that UoE will have lecture capture facility in all teaching space soon™. https://t.co/h0C0rejjhE #ynotwatt?
— C (@c4miller) January 17, 2017
from Twitter https://twitter.com/c4miller
January 17, 2017 at 11:06AM
via IFTTT
Hand, M (2008) Hardware to everywhere: narratives of promise and threat, chapter 1 of Making digital cultures: access, interactivity and authenticity. Aldershot: Ashgate. pp 15-42.
Bloody hell that’s a can of worms you don’t want to be opening. Or at least you don’t want to get caught approving of the idea in front of angry academics. The main complaints seem to be:
1.) Who owns the lecture capture and lecture content from then on, the university or the academic?
2.) Will students even turn up to lectures anymore? How will this effect the real time lecture hall?
3.) Will this stifle expression in the lecture hall? How will being recorded change students willingness to ask questions? Will it change academic’s willingness to fruitfully digress off topic?
4.) Will it lead to less interactive and group work based lectures as you have to think of the viewers “at home”? Interactive lectures are thought of as innovative and it is interesting in this case that a new technology might actually stifle innovation.
Thanks for the comment Daniel.
Students are in many cases, already not turning up for lectures, the question is how do we best use the time they have for something that they feel is worth getting on-campus for? Not every academic is an engaging speaker. Not every academic is actually teaching a course that they would consider their specialty.
There is a need to check the research behind this one, but I don’t think placing video captures online diminishes attendance if it’s put in place alongside other changes.
As for IP rights… that depends on the contract, and the willingness of a university to enforce any which finds in the employer’s favour. I doubt it would have much mileage in the UK at least.
Technology actually exists to have interactive, asynchronous video chat, feedback and comment embedded in to a learning environment. See Sony’s Sannspace for an example http://www.sansinc.com/solutions/sansspace-virtual-language-learning-platform/.
As you can tell, I’m certainly in favour of using the flipped classroom model, but only where it can work. There are clearly subjects that would not benefit so well, but as I work in a non-STEM HEI school/faculty, it provides a very worthwhile model. I hope The University of Edinburgh has the resources and buy-in at all levels of the University (teaching and administration) to make a real impact on their institution’s practice.