Chris Lott, commenting on his institution’s acquisition of Elluminate video-conferencing platform as a teaching tool concludes,
The real issue with any of these tools isn’t finding one that works, it is learning– and then teaching colleagues– how to teach in a way that takes advantage of the capabilities and doesn’t merely replicate the lecture mode in a distributed format. That’s deadly. As I always say, the only thing more deadly than the PowerPoint drone and lecture model is that same model through a mediating tool like Elluminate…About Elluminate
I agree that when video-conferencing avoiding replication of ineffective lecture modes is important; however, always the devil’s advocate (well, at least 50% of the time), have to ask, first, if this is a blanket condemnation of the lecture mode regardless of delivery method, or if the technology itself interferes with, disturbs, or detracts from the traditional lecture (which may in a classroom actually be effective).
I’m guessing most folks in educational technology or instructional design lament the continued use of straight lecture format (”sage on the stage”) regardless of delivery environment, but I, having been a student in more than a handful of damn good and several quite memorable lectures (from which I still retain a significant amount of information), causing me to assert that straight lecture is not de facto a bad thing.
At this point I have absolutely no empirical evidence that suggests straight lecture is or can be highly effective, but now (from this small comment tacked onto the end of a technology tool review, no less) I’m inspired to look into it. Comparitively speaking how effective is lecture for learning? What makes lecture more or less effective? There has to be a good deal of research on this already. (Any recommendations on salient books/articles are now being accepted!)
I can name some ailments of lectures delivered via video conferencing that I have witnessed. In both edtech informational sessions and in vendor presentations delivered via video conferencing, presenters do tend to follow a simple, generic pattern (much informed by PowerPoint) which centers on providing text-and-talk-heavy information in tedious spurts with brief pauses for “questions” (which, in and of themselves, often occur too late or at moments so ill-planned moments that they actually increase the presentations/presenter’s anesthetizing qualities). Any questions posed rarely lead to real dialogue or discussion; rather, questions are merely a challenge that the presenter must overcome before being allowed to continue with his/her script.
And though these ailments can certainly be present in a live, in-person classroom-style lecture or presentation, my instinct tells me that there’s something about phsyical human presence that either reinforces the delivery of the information, or provides for better audience attention through either overt or more subtle person-to-person engagement.
The next question, then, would be how does technology deliver methods affect the effectiveness of lecture? Video conferencing in particular should be examined, though of course some common attributes will need to be agreed upon so as to include a live fiber-optic system like we have at UVSC, or an Internet-delivered system like Elluminate.
I would hypothesize that a boring lecture in the classroom becomes worse when video-delivered, either because it becomes (a) less interesting for lack of physical presence (for whatever reason…engagement?), or (b) less compelling to one’s attention when technology-delivered (possibly because of the presence or availability of more distractors, or because of the absence of social pressure to show interest/passively participate).
It would be interesting to brainstorm presentation effectiveness on tech-delivered platforms with some ed researchers and public speaking experts. How does one leverage the live delivery method so that the end results are superior to static information delivery? How does one construct information to affect better learning? How does one engage with the audience and make an impact that may stimulate memory a la the affective factor?
I’m glad I triggered your thinking, but my intention was actually much simpler… my point isn’t against lecture as a teaching method. What I mean to say in my post is that there’s no reason to engage all the machinery and requirements of Elluminate if all one is going to do is lecture or commit murder by powerpoint.
In the first case, I don’t believe the talking head video adds significantly compared to the resources, etc. consumed (except, perhaps, in elementary school situations). Simple audioconference, in that situation, is cheaper and much more accessible.
In the second case, I again wonder why bother with all the machinery? It’s like fitting out all the gear needed for a six-week trek through Africa to stay the night at a park down the street.
The minute one starts talking about adding whiteboard activities or the presence indicators or a backchannel, etc. to the lecture, then of course it is a different story!
When I say I don’t have a problem with lecture mode, I mean it… there have been great teachers for thousands of years. But I also mean lecture to involve give and take with students, dialogue, dialectic, etc.
In any case, I/we have no desire to force different modes on instructors… if they are not inclined to change or desire to do something that they aren’t yet able to do, I just don’t see the POINT in forcing them into Elluminate.
Straight videoconference– we too have a university videoconference system– *can* be effective, but I remain unconvinced that it is essentially more effective than audioconference (and we have had a lot of experience with these modes) while it is even less open to student access.
Again, it will be situational– our students are very dispersed and the commodity internet to them isn’t reliable enough to route video… asking them to travel significant distances to sit in a room and deal with the intense transactional distance (search for that term for research) of videoconference just doesn’t work well.
I do like that the shininess of videoconferencing, which is like a jewelled bauble in the eyes of administrators, often leads to significant bandwidth upgrades to remote sites :)
You’re right: Jewelled baubles abound! That’s all Blackboard Vista is, really. Moodle is nearly as good in respect to all the tools/features of Blackboard, and in some ways better. LMS-less? That’s still a different story.