Classroom Lectures Go Digital

It's unfortunate that the mainstream media treats educational technology so superficially.

The opening line of this article from the New York Times is "The virtual teacher has arrived..." Well, actually, this isn't a new concept and it isn't about using technology because that's what today's learners want as Granine Conole says in the article. To be fair, the article does acknowledge that teaching using video has been around for over thirty years but it is not until the end that we get the key point about educational techology:

"The discussion needs to focus on how people teach and learn, their needs and the choices they make," said Alejandro Armellini, senior learning designer at the Beyond Distance Research Alliance at the University of Leicester.  "If the technology becomes the driver, e.g. 'let's do X because this technology here is really cool' — regardless of need or preference, we have problems."

http://nyti.ms/PUiKuP