Image source: http://wheresthesausage.typepad.com/.a/6a00d8341c5f1b53ef01156e72ad1a970c-800wi
Think ‘school’ and images of books, lecture notes and pages and pages of essays come to mind. Hardly tantalising stuff.
But with the advent of new media, there has been a concerted exploration of new teaching methods and modalities. No longer is the student made to wallow through never-ending pages of notes and countless tomes. No longer does the student need to beaver away at taking down notes during lectures. Today’s students can easily access videotaped lectures, multimedia demonstrations and audio recordings of lesson material through avenues such as iTunes U and YouTube Education – for free. Assessment has also followed the paper-to-web trend – now, students are assessed on online platforms in addition to the traditional pen-and-paper methods.
Image source: http://nicka77.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/youtube_edu_lg2.jpg
These new forms of teaching and learning supplement the print medium and pre-Internet modes such as ‘instructional television, films, listening laboratories, programmed instruction, special multimedia facilities, transparencies for overhead projection, telephone applications to instruction, simulation…’. [1]
Not only do these new avenues educate students of the producers’ respective students, they also inform people from all over the world. One only needs an Internet connection to enjoy the lectures and audio clips. This is truly globalisation in the knowledge age.
