Harvard podcasts lecture video...
The Harvard Crimson :: News :: Harvard Offers Course Via iPod
Fantastic. Apparently, only a few CompSci intro courses, but still...
It's interesting that it's got to take a 'cool tool' such as the iPod Video as the platform - iTunes on a PC is a fantastic video playback environment - and sucks in video files in RSS2 feeds just as well...although the 'sync and carry on watching on the bus' is a compelling proposition.
I keep on wondering why cellphones aren't used more as 'podcatchers' - are people simply not synching their phones as they do with iPods? Of course, it shouldn't matter, as handsets can connect to the bloody internet themselves! But with prohibitive pricing (£3 per megabyte anyone?) in the UK, I won't be trying over the air synching..
And what pedagogical effect will this have on the world of 'e-learning' - watching video and listening to audio is far more of a return to Socratic teaching/learning...the itconversations stuff I listen to is very much traditional lecture.
But then it invariably interests me to go an research and contextualise myself - true 'self-drected' learning.
These abstracted 'you will learn...' narratives in 'interactive' e-learning should be regarded as the anachronism they are, and instead, trust learners to get interested and provide them with search, tagging (to support self-created contexts) and conversations.
I was having this conversation the other night. People are all 'expert' searchers - they search , evaluate and contextualise in rapid ways throughout their working day. And yet when we present them with a computer based learning environment, we try and force them into a linear, abstracted 'learning journey'. I've even some courseware with the next button disabled!
We're all activist learners now...
Give them access to experts (coach 'em if necessary) and get out of the way.
Of course, I then look at movies, books, documentaries and articles and see the power of linear narrative :-)
Maybe it's just the size of the 'chunk' that fails for e-learning - learners would be happier with 5 minute chunks?
(Harvard story via The Unofficial Apple Weblog.)
