Has anyone else heard of this?
College professors are now converting their lectures to podcasts and posting them for students to pick up at their leisure.
What a great idea! Sure, I can hear the skeptics saying, “Students are going to skip class even more now,” but my theory is that the set of students who miss class will remain exactly the same, while those who show up will now have a reinforcing tool to take with them when they’re not in class.
Walking around campus, the number of students with trendy white earbuds is truly astounding. I’m certain that given the opportunity, some of these students would review the previous lecture while walking to class, or catch up on material they may have missed the first time.
Maybe I would feel differently if I were teaching, but class attendance is a complete non-issue as far as I’m concerned. Students are supposedly paying for the professor’s time and wisdom; if they choose to waste their money by not showing up, who cares? Their choice, their consequences. Not the professor’s problem.
I’d rather have somebody skip class than sit in front of me playing first-person-shooters or watching DVD’s on their laptop (not uncommon in CS dept. classes.)