March 28, 2010 Week 10

On Morgan Bayda's Blog and Dan Brown's Video

It is amazing to me that college classes sound the same as they were in the 80's when I went to USA for my teaching degree. After reading Morgan Bayda's blog on "An Open Letter to Educators", it occurred to me not much has changed. I am only taking one class at USA after being out of college for several years, so I can't compare other college classes and experiences of today. I can only compare college classes from the late 80's and very early 90's. Interestingly, most classes sound very similar to the classes I had back then. I am very surprised to hear it's pretty much the same. It certainly brought back memories as I listened to Dan Brown's video where he spoke of "frantically scribbling facts" from lectures and then memorizing the facts to later be tested on. Sounds archaic, seeing as I was doing the same exact thing so many, many years ago.
As I commented on Morgan's blog, there is a difference from back then to now. The professors of today use Powerpoint to accompany their lectures. My professors used a chalkboard (or whiteboard in some classes) with the lectures in the late 80's and early 90's. If that's any indication of how technology is moving in education, then, we have a very long way to go in public and higher education. Isn't that sad?
You may hear my comment on Morgan's blog below.