Posts tagged lectures
Back to normal?

Campus is open again for business. In a month from now I start the 2022 edition of my building physics course. It feels a bit strange to return to the physical classroom. I haven’t done a real lecture since early 2020. They say that if you don’t use it, you lose it. We will see in a month whether there’s some truth to that. I have been very active posting vlogs every day since 2019 and I have a feeling that the experience gained it will come in very handy now. Such a weird feeling, I have practiced so hard in front of the camera - around 1000 videos. It will be very interesting to see how that translates into a physical room.

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What teachers get wrong about e-learning

I read some excellent posts and comments this week by Jakob Heidbrink, where he explains the friction he has encountered with the sudden shift to e-learning. More specifically, he described the agonizing process of recording his lectures and how he spent eleven hours to record a 60-minute lecture. Heidbrink is correct in his analysis regarding the required time. I usually say that it takes 10X the time to record and post process a lecture (video editing), compared to just giving it in the classroom. I suspect most teachers that have tried this route will agree with the observation. However, it sounds to me like Heidbrink suffers from the “perfection equals paralysis” condition (also common among engineers). The primary reason for the 10X increase in time he explains, is that he re-records over and over because he stumbles upon words, scratch his nose, cough, and so on – basically just being human. He claims that when a teacher does this in the classroom it is acceptable, but on a recorded lecture such mistakes are not allowed. I disagree and here’s my proposed solution.

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