Lectures and the utilitarian student
Recently the Australian higher education supplement published an article by Craig Deed about students walking out on lectures. In it he describes the sorry state of the university lecture, which are increasingly characterised by small attendances.
There are a number of perspectives on this observation, many of which essentially argue that students have changed, academics have not, and the problem is the manifestation of a growing generation gap. The solution: talk to ‘the kids’ in a language they understand – use technology. Seems obvious, doesn’t it? After all, they’re all members of the ‘netspeed’ generation, and ‘they’ all use computers for everything from listening to music to sex.
