[LINK] Outrage as University of Newcastle to track student attendance using mobile phones - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

[Tom Worthington]

On 7/2/20 11:42 am, Roger Clarke wrote:

> In 1994-95 ... intended dropping several lectures... threatened to
> sack me. ...

Things have progressed. In 2008 when I announced I was not giving any 
more lectures and proposed a pure on-line course, this was approved, 
eventually. Concern was not over the lack of lectures, but assessment 
methods. I had to make the case that it was okay to have a course with 
no traditional face-to-face examination at the end.

In 2017 ANU started offering online language courses through Open 
Universities Australia: 
https://www.open.edu.au/about-us/media-centre/news-and-media-releases/2017/12/19/03/50/oua-forms-new-partnership-with-the-australian-national-university

> A person doing a fresh and enthusiastic presentation ...

Unfortunately the typical university lecture is not fresh, or filled 
with enthusiasm. The low point for me was when I was briefly a night 
school student, on a cold, dark campus, where no one wanted to be: not 
the students, or the lecturer.

> Some students like to be in the same venue as the lecturer. ...

A "live studio audience" also makes for a better recorded presentation, 
as TV comedy producers know.

> And students do like a lecture at the end of a unit of study. ...

Students like having lectures available, but do not necessarily turn up. 
Research shows that lectures make no significant difference to student 
outcomes.

See: "Ten Tips for Quickly Converting Courses for Online Delivery " 
https://blog.highereducationwhisperer.com/2020/02/some-tips-for-quickly-converting.html

-- 
Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP IP3P http://www.tomw.net.au
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Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University
https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington