DyKnow

Lecture capture shouldn't be lecture preservation

From the moment it was suggested, I was almost giddy with excitement. Private notes is a special area where students can take notes without having to contend with the notes coming from the Session, so it simply makes so much sense that students should be able to use the private notes area to take additional notes when using Replay. Prepare to be introduced to my favorite feature in 5.3.

Alright, so I really just introduced you, but I can't figure out a way to verbalize my excitement over this. Students (okay anyone, but I have had students in mind this whole time) can replay a notebook and write any additional notes in the private notes area. It's a subtle addition, yes, but so was capturing audio and syncing it with the rest of your lecture content. But that subtle change is now being used to turn the classroom upside down by having students watch the recorded lecture before class and spending classtime going over more difficult exercises or discussing problem areas.

Simply put, learning is a living and continuous process that doesn't end when class finishes. If we've merely captured the lecture as if to put in a museum, we're really only becoming more efficient at being a sage on the stage (sage on the screen?). But by encouraging refinement of observations and making new connections, the captured lecture is more than a recording but instead a tool used by the student for his or her own investigation.

Along the same lines, I'm excited about what this means for the upside down classroom approach. I'm a firm believer in having your notes right there with the content (it's a lifesaver when reviewing or relearning material after several years), and now students can take notes that are linked to the recorded lecture. I'm not naive enough to believe this is some educational panacea, and perhaps I'm making a bit too much of this minor tweak. Nonetheless, I think this is a step in the right direction and am proud to be able to say we've added it to 5.3.
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Image adapted from Marshall Astor's original image found here.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lifeontheedge/ / CC BY-SA 2.0