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USC professor’s DIY online teaching hack to engage students goes viral (2020)

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Re: USC professor’s DIY online teaching hack to engage students goes viral (2020)

#101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let us also remember, she actually built AND shipped. It's funny how much further this is than the side projects of so many here (myself included) For me this is one of those 10,000 things. We can either dismiss it, or share in the joy of learning something new and sharing our own lessons. Teachers learning OBS will be as much of a game changer as teachers moving from overheads to powerpoint, I think. Also, I feel…

> Teachers learning OBS will be as much of a game changer as teachers moving from overheads to powerpoint, I think. Just an anecdote but as a chemistry student I remembered lessons taught from an overhead far better than those from powerpoint. There was a stark contrast between the lower division organic chemistry series whose instructors used overheads, and the upper division organic chemistry mechanisms class whose…

I actually hope more teachers go for the simple overhead option. I do, using an overhead webcam.

A physical overhead with the instructor's hand visible has been shown to work far better than presenting ready-made diagrams. It also works better than digital drawing, probably due to the natural inclusion of pointing gestures guiding students' attention [1].

There is also evidence (and good theoretical reasons to believe) that a transparent lightboard leads to unnecessary distraction/split attention. [2]

[1]: https://sci-hub.se/https://doi.org/10.1037/edu0000065

[2]: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2018.07.019

Re: USC professor’s DIY online teaching hack to engage students goes viral (2020)

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Video _should_ take over from lectures, but there needs to be a model to properly replace it. On my part, I think it's an utter waste of the teacher's time to keep repeating the same lecture over and over, when he/she should be doing exactly the conversation and engagement part. It's just we don't have a good, universal model for this. I'm sure lots of places tried and succeeded, but for some reason no particular way…

" Partly, I suspect, is because 80% of the value of education is signaling, so any "revolution in teaching" would be just optimizing the 20% left. " I disagree rather strongly.

"The Case Against Education - Wikipedia" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_Against_Education

Re: USC professor’s DIY online teaching hack to engage students goes viral (2020)

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" Partly, I suspect, is because 80% of the value of education is signaling, so any "revolution in teaching" would be just optimizing the 20% left. " I disagree rather strongly.

"The Case Against Education - Wikipedia" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_Against_Education

And I disagree strongly that the sole value of education, or a human being, is economic.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/is-education-a-waste-...

https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning...

Re: USC professor’s DIY online teaching hack to engage students goes viral (2020)

#104
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Back in about 1988, I took a required history class from a local community college. (To help make up for the fact that it took me four semesters to get through the two semester calculus course.) The course consisted of... 1. A high-production-value TV program transmitted on the local PBS channel. 2. In-person mid-term and final tests. 3. "Teaching assistants" (it was a local community college; I'm not sure what their…

> On the other hand, there was no engagement with the material. You read the textbook, watched the TV, and went in to take the tests. End of story. For an introverted autodidact like me, that’s all I want. But I recognize I truly am in the minority here.

Do you ever go to technical meetups? Conferences? Get together with anyone to discuss what you've learned?

Re: USC professor’s DIY online teaching hack to engage students goes viral (2020)

#105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The Case Against Education - Wikipedia" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Case_Against_Education

And I disagree strongly that the sole value of education, or a human being, is economic. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/is-education-a-waste-... https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning...

I disagree :)

First link is paywalled, and the second is rather unconvincing, and pales in comparison to Caplan's overly careful argumentation.

I suspect we have different lufe experiences as well. For me most education years were either a waste of time, or at least came with very high opportunity costs.

Re: USC professor’s DIY online teaching hack to engage students goes viral (2020)

#106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand, there was no engagement with the material. You read the textbook, watched the TV, and went in to take the tests. End of story. For an introverted autodidact like me, that’s all I want. But I recognize I truly am in the minority here.

Do you ever go to technical meetups? Conferences? Get together with anyone to discuss what you've learned?

Only those conferences work requires me to go to. I don’t get much out of them, to be honest. I never attend meetups. (I did a few times in the past, they were worse than useless to me.)

I’ve had beers with other devs in my field, and very productive cross-industry meetings. But general agenda-less meetups are not useful, no.

Re: USC professor’s DIY online teaching hack to engage students goes viral (2020)

#108
post #5

Not sure why this title has "goes viral", it is nothing new. Almost 8 years ago, Dr. Jules White explained a simpler setup(at least IMO as less software) in very detail with a Mirror: Building a Low-cost Lightboard for Video Lectures https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FYwXOLU4TKk

I would consider top 10 on HN front page to be "going viral."

What made to top 10 is the article claims the event is going viral, NOT the event itself. The exaggeration on news articles with this type of title has become a pattern.
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