Mark's Notebook


	And this is the simple truth - that to live is to feel oneself lost. He who accepts it has already begun to find himself, to be on firm ground. Instinctively, as do the shipwrecked, he will look around for something to which to cling, and that tragic, ruthless glance, absolutely sincere, because it is a question of his salvation, will cause him to bring order to the chaos of his life. These are the only genuine ideas; the ideas of the shipwrecked. All the rest is rhetoric, posturing, farce. - Soren Kierkegaard

Course Casting

Newsweek

Sunday 27 November 2005, 6:49 pm
Keywords: Computer Topics , News Articles

By Peg Tyre

This fall, a dozen colleges across the country have introduced a controversial new teaching tool called course casting, aimed at supplementing—and in some cases replacing—large, impersonal lectures. Students at Purdue University have downloaded 40,000 lectures since the start of the semester -- not bad for a school with an enrollment of 38,000. Drexel, Stanford, Duke and American University have begun course-casting programs, too. But critics complain that digital lectures delivered through earphones cut down on the vital interaction between professors and students.

Some academics worry that much is lost when sophomores scroll between audio files of a philosophy lecture and the latest hit by Franz Ferdinand. Students learn an important skill when they are required to show up for a lecture: creating a schedule and sticking to it. Being in class keeps them in regular contact with professors, which, experts say, is a key to keeping dropout rates low. Lectures, too, force students to focus for long, uninterrupted stretches. A topnotch lecture should be provocative, catch you up short and make you think in ways you never have before. Those kinds of intellectual epiphanies rarely happen at the laundromat.

But converts say course casting is an easy way to add a much-needed jolt to the large introductory courses most departments must offer to underclassmen each semester. Weaned on fast-paced music videos and thrill-a-minute game systems, students often complain that 90-minute lectures are mind-numbingly dull. The technology makes it easier for professors to enliven lectures with guest speakers and primary-source material. Some professors actually act more like DJs than Ph.D.s, composing musical intros, adding gong sounds, jokes and other aural cues to emphasize important ideas on the digitalized version of their lectures.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10117475/site/newsweek/