by Victoria Clarke
I downloaded a set of podcasts from my college website over the weekend. These are recordings of evening lectures available for all current students to download and listen to, regardless of whether you had been able to make the evening or not. An excellent idea, I thought. I may have chosen to learn by distance but there are some things that you miss out on – like the odd exam tip or hearing about others’ experiences.
I listened to two – the introductory lectures from the two modules that I’m sitting. And how different they were! Tutor 1 was lively and quirky, and when he asked the class questions he paraphrased all answers and there were no long pauses whilst discussion went on. Tutor 2 was less lively, but appeared to be more consultative, engaging the class in much discussion. The only problem was that the listener can’t hear what the class is saying, and so you’re left with lots of long pauses and what sounded like much writing on a whiteboard. This sounded like a great, interactive class. I would have liked to have been there. Unfortunately, I wasn’t. I was sitting on a train on my morning’s commute and feeling quite lonely.
And that’s the key to good distance learning – yes we need to engage learners, and yes we need to motivate them but we also need to make them feel connected, part of the larger community. Don’t give them a podcast where they learn little and spend most of the time wondering what interesting points are being written on the whiteboard!
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