12 August 2020

Recording lectures

I've recorded the first batch of lectures! And made associated teaching materials. I downloaded a newer version of Office so I could. And this was a module only make a minor contribution to. It was quite a lot of work anyway! Which brings the message home on how much we have to do before the start of term. Oh dear. But let's crack on. The only way to do it!

These lectures were still done on my old computer. The sound quality isn't brilliant! But well, I did the best I could considering circumstances. The next batch will be better. But now I need to upload them onto the module website. Even only uploading the powerpoints is not trivial on my rural wifi. I suppose the computer will have to upload some of the files overnight! As soon as you start recording materials the file size explodes. Oh well. If that's what it takes! 

And the teaching materials? Well, I'll have to see how they go down with the students! I like them; for now I can only hope they will too. I basically talk them through a bunch of articles in which what I have been talking about is applied. I ask questions and then give the answers. Can the students just click straight to the answers and not first think about it? Well, yes. But what can you do! If you're teaching in person and you ask the room a question, individual students can just be asleep and not even notice you asked anything, let alone ponder the answer. You can't force people to engage! But I hope it will become clear how we know what we know and why it matters we know it. 

And does it all look slick? Heck no! I suppose that would require two things: practice, and an eye for it. The former I will surely get, so my next batch of materials will look better, but the second I probably never will have. Oh well. As long as it is pedagogically justified! So onwards to the next module. I hope I can get that done in no too much time! 




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