Perceptive Change in Education with Web 2.0

Is online video changing the way your students perceive your teaching and education? What impact could it have in the future?


Students are always already changing. The quick pace of media makes for an interesting twist for we as instructors. It seems we can never again expect to create a class and have it be the same semester after semester. New technologies continue to show themselves to us as ways to better access the learning capacity of our students.

When we continue to learn new technologies, we say to our students that we are current and believable. Who wants to listen to a teacher stand in front of a classroom and lecture for 1.25 hours twice a week anymore??? I certainly don't. I didn't really want to sit and listen even before YouTube, wikimania, and photosharing.

Concerning the future, we as teachers are going to need to continue taking classes such as this one to stay current and believable with the students of the techno future. We will need to take these classes so we can keep up with our own children and grandchildren. In many ways we can be better protectors from the "bad" stuff out there if we are aware of what's out there. And we can be a better guide to the "good" stuff out there for our students and our own family members when we practice seeking useful material.

I believe that it will become more and more attractive to offer classes online. Having video capability will allow students from far distances as well as those living in the dorms to accommodate their work schedules, family schedules, or merely their personal preference schedules. When students can view the lecture and email the teacher, it will become less and less necessary for those students who are visual and auditory learners to come to the classroom. Already we are seeing an increase in Distance Learning and hybrid classes here at Yavapai College. This summer alone there are hardly any face-to-face classes left, especially on smaller campuses.

Web 2.0 also creates a level playing field. When students and teachers can each create the curriculum for the classroom, and each person's material is online for outsiders to access as well, who becomes the authority? Of course the teacher will still have the right and responsibility to assess the grades, but seriously, who is the authority? Whose ideas are better? Or does that even matter? Does what matters is that we come to the best possible decision, conclusion, quality of information? These are some serious considerations for us as educators and students.