If professors post their lectures online, will students still come to class?
That question came up in two different sessions at the recent 2009 Educause Conference in Denver, as reported by Inside Higher Ed. In both cases, the panelists cited research indicating that students’ likelihood of skipping class has no correlation with whether a professor decides to capture the lecture and post it the Web.
Attendance is much more contingent on whether the professor is an engaging lecturer, said Jennifer Stringer, director of educational technology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, at one of the sessions. “Well-attended lectures were well-watched; poorly attended lectures were not watched,” Stringer said, pointing to research she had conducted at Stanford. "If you’re bad, you’re bad. If you’re bad online, you’re bad in lectures, students don’t come.”
The technology known as “lecture capture,” which is offered in many forms by many vendors, has been getting more and more attention in higher education "as the software becomes more sophisticated and studies suggesting it could boost retention and performance continue piling up," according to the article.
Here's the link to the Inside Higher Ed. piece by Steve Kolowich. Caveat: Most of the examples cited are from selective universities.
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