Either way, if the lecture/lesson was boring, the video was boring too.

I think the need for interactivity outweighs the need for recording.

For me, the idea is not for them to “learn” the material, but rather incorporate the effects and lessons of the material that will allow them to contextualize future experiences, both in-school and out. The exercise itself is an embodied learning experience of developing theory from observation and experience – a more useful skill than is commonly thought.

J.D. Williams noted an important constraint — doing a well-done video presentation is EXTREMELY time- and resource-intensive. I put together a series of 12 introductory LaTeX tutorial videos last summer, and more than once I spent over 6 hours putting together a single, 12-minute video. It’s a LOT harder than it looks, even to get something rudimentary.

Also, let’s not forget the live, social context of the lecture. If you’re listening to a lecture and you have a question, you can raise your hand and get instant interaction. Not so much with video lectures.

Still, I think the medium is promising, and perhaps somebody will come along and create some software tools that simplify the process some.

I’ve moved to this model in my own mathematics courses, and I find it very effective. It takes a while for some of the students to get used to it, since they’re used to showing up to class ready to take notes on my lectures. Instead, I ask them to actively work on math problems during class.

In mathematics, I might not put online a videocast of a lecture for students to watch before class. Instead, I might work a few math problems on my tablet PC and record my audio commentary as I work them. I would imagine that the pre-class reading / watching / listening assignment instructors use would depend on their discipline and the course at hand.

I wonder whatever happened to that idea? And why do we think students will, in their unsupervised, unstructured personal time be willing to sit still to watch a televised lecture with mediocre to poor production values, once the novelty wears off and three of their four professors are teaching this way, in the face of competition from professionally produced, high-budget standard television?

Then again, there was television, wasn’t there, which was to revolutionize education in precisely the same way?

It’s not that it can’t be done well—obviously it can. It just requires the same things that every other form of teaching requires: hard work, keen observation, careful reflection, passion for one’s subject, well-developed skills, and the ability to foster openness, curiosity, and willingness in close relationships with students. This is not dependent on any medium, nor is it the privileged province of any of them (or any combination). That’s not to dismiss these efforts—simply to put them in a larger context.

Truth be told, nothing beats lecture notes. Nothing.

Ok, you can add some splish splash to your lecture notes, like animations, hyperlinks, posting boards, but in the end, the written word is king.

One thing that I think may make it a little less effective is the whole traditional model of “lecturing.” Lecturing was invented as a way to transmit knowledge to a large classroom from the front of the classroom, when students couldn’t get personal copies of important books.

The model of watching a lecture online, alone somewhere, is a very different experience. Have you watched many videocasts of lectures? The only thing more boring than sitting through a dull lecture is sitting through a dull lecture by yourself in a dark room while a man in a two-by-three square on your screen prattles on and on from behind a lectern.

On the other hand, who hasn’t been sucked in to watching people they don’t know on Youtube prattle on about something or another for ages? The closer camera work and conversational style work better for the medium. I think the most effective lecture-casting wouldn’t feel like a lecture at all– maybe more like a Youtube vlog interspersed with images and visual representations of data a la powerpoint– only avoiding the annoying habit of using powerpoint to throw your outline up on the board.