I can still remember the shock of discovering that Facebook wasn’t blocked from the computers at uni. Then I remembered: this isn’t high school any more. No more teachers hovering, making sure you’re doing your work. Responsible uni students would understand the computers are there for assignments, not for Facebook. I don’t know any one who believes the previous statement, but everyone is willing to pretend it’s the truth, so I’ll let it stand. Another shock at my first ever uni lecture was the big announcement that this lecture, and every other lecture in the topic, would be recorded and put online. ‘Therefore,’ my lecturer emphasised, ‘If you happen to miss a lecture, you can go online and catch-up.’ The overflowing lecture theatre on my first day hasn’t been overflowing since. Universities have cottoned on that students are embracing technology, and, even if the majority of the time it is for social networking sites, Universities need to get on board and utilise the technology of the 21st century.
In theory, recorded lectures are great. If students have a clash in their timetable, they can catch up the missed lectures at their convenience, and if a student is sick or has no choice but to miss a lecture, they are able to replay the whole thing instead of relying on someone else’s notes. If there is an essay question that relates to a specific lecture, just a few clicks of the mouse will ensure the student can pick up some information they missed the first time around. It seems that recorded lectures are the way to go, offering students more flexibility in their timetabling.
You can still catch up on missed lectures if you are "sick"
Then there is the syndrome which comes with recorded lectures: the I-won’t-go-to-uni-and-listen-to-it-later syndrome. There is one perfect summer day left, before autumn will morph into a never ending winter. It is the absolute last opportunity to spend the day at the beach for another six months or so, and, despite the Law, English Literature and Philosophy lectures scheduled for the day, it is obviously a much better decision to spend the last beach day at the beach. The recorded lecture will be waiting online to listen to that night. The day is amazing. Once at home, there is no use in ruining a perfect day by listening to lost lectures. Tonight becomes tomorrow, tomorrow becomes next week and next week becomes swot vac. One missed lecture probably won’t cost you the course. But a semester of missed lectures isn’t necessarily the way to go, unless you’re prepared to take the topic again next year.
Another downside is that for everything technology is (let’s face it, who could even imagine studying without the Internet these days?), it isn’t the most reliable system. Failed recordings, human error, lost tapes, slow to be uploaded onto the Internet, not having the right system requirements to playback information. Everything that could go wrong, will go wrong, usually all of them in all topics, at some point during the semester. This isn’t helped by the fact that uni lecturers are, for the most part, of an older generation. A generation who was not born and bred on technological advancements. Fixing slight working errors is therefore not second nature to several of the lecturers, and time delays while waiting for tech support to come and fix the problem often cuts the lecture time down significantly, leaving the students who attended to go online to download the lecture notes anyway.
You have been warned! This does happen as many lecturers are not very tech savvy
Despite the hiccups that come with almost any form of technology, recorded lectures are the way to go. More universities should seriously consider using the technology in order to help students with the flexibility of timetabling, enabling them to take courses which may clash. At the end of the day, it is the student’s choice in how they choose to make the most of their university education. If making an appearance on campus for the lectures works best, or listening to the lectures later or not at all, it is purely the student’s decision. No one is going to enforce lecture attendance, or tie the student to a chair and make them listen to the lecture audio. Sure, Facebook is a more appealing option than playing back lectures. But at the end of the degree, with a diploma firmly in hand, do you really want to look back on three or four years of study and find that while you can recite the highs and lows of Facebook friends in all that time, you’re not entirely sure what you went to university for? I didn’t think so. Yes, we’re in the 21st century- but we can use the tools we have to aid us in our studies, not deter us.
