Mastodawn

Jon Sterling Jan 27, 2025

I have broken it to my students that I will not be releasing lecture recordings anymore (except in cases where it is warranted—put away your pitchforks!). The reaction is like watching a demon being exorcised... one passes through each stage of grief. By the way, to make up for this, I have made commitments to my students of personal engagement that go far beyond what almost any other lecturer here offers.

This could be catastrophic for my ratings, but in the end, I want to give great and engaging lectures that delight and encourage my students. And the twin evils of (1) being on the record at all times, and (2) having recording policies that make it benefit-negative for students to attend Lecture makes it nearly impossible for me to do that.

So I'm taking a stand.

Boarders Jan 27, 2025

@jonmsterling though I am a critic of “back to office” policies (since I see unwavering corporate policies as rigidly implemented and exclusionary of women from participating in public life), I do believe the collective unconscious will, and is, shifting back towards understanding that we are physically embodied and being in a lecture course with your fellow students and instructors is actually not going to be replaced by watching on YouTube (we are years out from the MOOC fantasy, and yet it remains like a living zombie)

Eli 💚 chaos 🌋🎲👾Jan 27, 2025

@boarders @jonmsterling Most universities are not designed for remote learning like e.g The Open University is, which functions very differently from MOOC-type courses or like whatever universities were forced to do during the pandemic. We have small lectures/tutorials where students are actively engaged, we have our own books that are externally reviewed all the time and are very well-made, and most students (esp those who continue year after year) are super motivated. 1/2

Eli 💚 chaos 🌋🎲👾Jan 27, 2025

@boarders @jonmsterling Basically there needs to be a lot of funding to support proper remote learning but the way it was done during the pandemic in regular unis is not it and it's good that we are throwing that out, yet we should be thinking how to make it better and get funding for developing these programs because there are a lot of people who wouldn't be able to study otherwise. Just having lectures recorded and lecture notes online is nothing in comparison to what we could have.

@eli @boarders @jonmsterling i disagree with this - i think that lecture notes slides and notes specifically are one of the most valuable things to make public. i don't think there needs to be much of anything proper about it to get 90% of the benefit.

very frequently when i am trying to learn some topic some professor's lecture notes not only come up but are the only thing that comes up. i think people underestimate the utility of just... information, freely online. for more introductory topics where there are plenty of existing resources online, sure, putting them online without some structure is probably not too valuable. but this is not the case for ex. any linguistics material past the third year.

(and also, personal opinion: i don't think remote learning ever was good over the pandemic...)

Boarders Jan 27, 2025

@jj @eli @jonmsterling I don’t think anyone here is against freely available lecture notes online, certainly not me!* - it is a wider conversation about how learning takes place in community and about what job we expect of lecturers. Should we expect them to also be multimedia producers? If not, should the university hire people to do such work, and if so, how would that look, what is the ideal format in which to run such mixed media classes? etc.

* these resources though are for people who are already self-directed learners which I view as a distinct group from everyone a university is supposed to educate and part of a “liberal arts” education is to liberate one to be free to pursue such ends in such self-directed ways

@boarders @eli @jonmsterling i don't consider myself a self-directed learner and i think lecture notes are invaluable. the point i'm trying to make is: quite frequently learning materials do not need to be processed or have any notion of quality to be useful - they just need to be out there

Jon Sterling Jan 27, 2025

@jj @boarders @eli That's true, and many students will agree — but in the end, this needs to be balanced with the fact that lecturers do not enjoy their unedited performances being available to be watched dozens of times, and maybe even shared. It has a chilling effect on us.

I understand that there's definitely trade-offs here, but as a worker I want to have more control over what I produce and how it is used.

Martin Escardo Jan 27, 2025

@jonmsterling @jj @boarders @eli

If I look at the statistics on Canvas, almost nobody watches the live recordings.

But many more people watch the prerecorded lectures, which are linked from our lecture notes.

Martin Escardo Jan 28, 2025

@jonmsterling @jj @boarders @eli

Oh oh. "hi, i’m watching back the lectures and you cant hear very well when you walk away from the mic, so we miss whats said. i just thought i should let you know"

Jon Sterling Jan 28, 2025

@MartinEscardo @jj @boarders @eli Yeah... Last year I was getting a lot of things like this, and I had to be like, "No, I am not going to change the way I lecture to fit a recording that I'm not even in control of..."

I always wonder what these kids think is going to happen when they say "just thought I should let you know". Let me know so I can do what, really??

ohad Jan 28, 2025

@jonmsterling @MartinEscardo @jj @boarders @eli BTW, I think they are being British when they say that. If I understand correctly, and I could be wrong, this would translate into my language as:
This has happened and I wish it didn't, but because of the power difference, I don't want to make it seem like you don't know this is happening nor to actually ask you to do anything for me, because I'm not in a position to. So I'll phrase it as if it's something that just came into my mind casually, and hint that I think you probably know it already and I'm doing it out of some kind of obligation, in case no one else will tell you about it, because it actually bothers me.

@jonmsterling @MartinEscardo @jj @boarders @eli You might think: no one in their right mind would spend this much time thinking about what to say and then use such an obscure sentence to say it and also why can't they just say it directly.

And you'd be right and wrong at the same time.

Jon Sterling Jan 28, 2025

@ohad @MartinEscardo @jj @boarders @eli Yeah, I'm taking it as an English-style tacit demand. But the thing that baffles me is not so much the mode of communication, but what they expect me to do about it!

Philippa Cowderoy Jan 28, 2025

@jonmsterling @ohad @MartinEscardo @jj @boarders @eli They're probably expecting "keep talking into the mic" (and if I was looking at a stand with something like an SM58 in it and radio or plenty of cable I'd happily pick up the mic - in my off hand if black/whiteboarding - myself: I sometimes use them even when not recording). But one option is to find whoever is responsible and talk to them about gear?

Playing "who can give the right evidence to budget holders?" is a pain in the arse of course, but it does have some chance of getting something done.

Jon Sterling Jan 28, 2025

@flippac @ohad @MartinEscardo @jj @boarders @eli Well, the issue in my case was something like “You keep moving off camera” and I am certainly not going to change the way I move during lecture to address a camera that I can neither see nor control.

Martin Escardo Jan 28, 2025

@jonmsterling @flippac @ohad @jj @boarders @eli

I provide the lecture recording "as is". It is not a substitute for the lecture, or for the lecture notes (or the occasional prerecorded lectures).

Martin Escardo Jan 28, 2025

@jonmsterling @flippac @ohad @jj @boarders @eli

And our university doesn't require us to do more (at least not yet).

Philippa Cowderoy Jan 28, 2025

@jonmsterling @ohad @MartinEscardo @jj @boarders @eli I've been a little distracted (in about 15 minutes a game unlocks and I'm going to start hunting virtual nazi balls for stress relief), but yeah, fuck that.

If they actually want anybody on camera the least they can do is show you the line it's pointed along and the area it covers!

Philippa Cowderoy Jan 28, 2025

@ohad @jonmsterling @MartinEscardo @jj @boarders @eli It's a stock way of saying it: I mostly use it either with people I trust with their own agency (where it's often at the start of a verbal interruption) or when I want to leave a lot of room to be more aggressive later on.

(The latter doesn't come up in academic contexts for me)

Pozorvlak Jan 28, 2025

@ohad the power differential is almost irrelevant here, though it does somewhat increase the level of politeness required. Simply saying "I can't hear you when you walk away from the mike" would be rude in most circumstances in BrEng; producing (and understanding) the more roundabout version requires almost no thought on the part of a native Brit!
@jonmsterling @MartinEscardo @jj @boarders @eli