I recently watched a recording on The Chronicle of Higher Education‘s blog from a forum entitled “Students Assess Their Professors’ Technology Skills.” Having been on both sides of this argument (formerly as member of a higher ed technology department and currently a student) I was instantly interested in what the students were going to have to say.
Initially I was pleasantly surprised by the fact that the recording was taken in realtime, not edited after. Also exciting was that the forum was conducted using the very new Google Hangouts, way to go free technologies!
As the forum continued I found myself recognizing that all the students did an excellent job of being respectful, while still conveying their points. In any situation in which you’re sharing/potentially criticizing it’s important to remain respectful, especially if you’re trying to create change. No one likes being attacked, especially someone who is “supposed to” and many times expects to be an authority figure, like a professor.
The underlying theme in my mind, of the whole presentation was simple: technology does not make a class, but it can certainly break it.
The students had many valid points, all of which you can listen to yourself in the video (it’s less than 10 minutes), however I wanted to share with you one of my favorites. The quote came from came from Jie Jenny Zou (senior), ”You should be able to teach a class without the technology. Technology should be there to help you.”
This was powerful to me because I’ve seen classes crash and burn because the Powerpoint presentation didn’t work. I’m not sure how many more times it needs to be said, but reading from a Powerpoint is NOT teaching. It’s regurgitating, which is sadly what most students are asked to do each day. If the instructor (online or in person) is simply reading from a presentation then they are effectively asking their students to consume their vomit, only to throw it back up.
Gross? Maybe, but how is that different than how some professors ask their students to “learn?”
Tags: eduction technology, Google Hanhouts, online learning, Powerpoint
