It seems my replace lecturers with videos post has struck a cord with a lot of people. I’m aware of a few teachers/ lecturers who’ve read this blog in the past so perhaps i’ve bitten off more than i can chew on this debate 
None the less, i’ll stand my ground – i don’t blog about something if i don’t mean it or if i can’t defend it. I’m a technology enthusiast and if i had my way, the whole world would be online, everyone would be blogging etc… But i don’t have it my way, if i did, the world would be a better place in my eyes, but only in my eyes.
That’s the beauty of a personal blog – you are running your own dictatorship in one sense but at the same time you get personal opinion and debate from others… i like being challenged and like reading and responding to comments. It makes me a better person as i get a more balanced view on things. If my opinion gets shot down and challenged i’ve no problem with that – it’s then up to me to defend my point of view and if i can’t, obviously i’ll have to think about altering my opinion on things slightly 🙂
Sticking with that blog post though, i’ve come across a very interesting wiki entry here which basically sums up my entire argument only in a much more polished and ‘nail on head’ style. Scroll down to ‘Lecture 2.0’ and this is exactly where i’m coming from;
A significant proportion of tertiary-level teaching lectures tend to have become more or less didactic and repeated relatively unchanged year after year. (This differs, say, from conference presentations which tend to be relatively unique.)
Thus, some institutions are experimenting with recording lectures one year, and then providing students with the recordings the following years and then putting the face-to-face teaching time instead into more interactive learning activities and learning support for students.
If effort is put into a creating a high quality recording, then we are making a kind of educational “documentary”. A high quality documentary offers potentially higher pedagogical value than a series of ill-prepared lecture by a lecturer who is not necessarily particularly expert in the subject at hand (as is often the case in modern universities).
There doesn’t seem to be many stats or direct comparisons between traditional learning and elearning when it comes to videos or lectures (there’s an interesting project for me at some stage!), so a lot of what i’m saying is backed up purely by my own experience and what i see with my own eyes. I know my classmates don’t like lectures, i know a lot don’t even turn up. Those that do turn up, myself included, get bored easily and are all prone to switching off depending on the time of day, lecturer and how much sleep we’ve had etc…
On a Monday morning i have 4 lecturers in 4 different subjects, in a row from 9am to 1pm. Usually dismal attendance figures too. Video would stamp out that disastrous timetable, allow the guys who aren’t in to have a shot at learning, plus even if i was 100% focused and alert for all 4 hours of lectures (which would never happen), it would allow me to revise come exam time and refresh my memory.