The most recent session of the “Teaching in Higher Education” course was about electronic tools in the classroom. There was a demonstration from Resource Centre for Academic Teaching (University of Toronto). On a purely technical note, this presentation could have been done in 15 minutes – the guy spoke way too slowly and belaboured each and every point. What I got out of the presentation was that universities are beginning to collaborate on developing shared electronic teaching modules. The demo he provided was an involved multi-media learning module. When questioned, he said it took four people working over a nine-month period to complete for a cost close to $100k. Whoa! Guess it’s going to be a while before these types of things gain wide-spread acceptance.
The second speaker presented on his experiences of using online resources. His take home message was that the technology was a supplement to what was going on in the classroom. You need to be clear as to what your objectives are before using the technology.
On another related note, I had my first micro-teaching session. Looking back, I think I did a very poor job caused by trying to cover too much information. Guess I’ll have to put some work in for session #2.