Now course casting lets college students skip classes and download lectures onto their iPods. Biology rocks! But some parents just don`t understand.

As Good As Being There

Is the digital lecture the learning tool of the future? Or just a dream come true for lazy freshmen? A survey of schools that offer the new technology:

By Peg Tyre

Newsweek

Nov. 28, 2005 issue - When Duke University junior Eddy Leal took a research trip to Puerto Rico recently and missed his macroeconomics lecture, he didn`t sweat it. The lecture is usually attended by about 75 students, so his professor was unlikely to notice his absence. He didn`t worry about falling behind, either. When he returned from his trip, Leal went to a Web site specially designated for Duke students and downloaded the lecture (which the professor had recorded and uploaded using an iPod) onto his personal computer. In the relative tranquillity of his dorm, Leal learned about models of government surplus. ``It isn`t the same as being there,`` says Leal. But for the chance to go to Puerto Rico, it was close enough.

Could ivy-covered lecture halls become as obsolete as the typewriter? This fall, a dozen colleges across the country have introduced a controversial new teaching tool called course casting, aimed at supplementing—and in some cases replacing—large, impersonal lectures. Although it has been around for less than a year, course casting has become as popular as a keg party on homecoming weekend. Students at Purdue University have downloaded 40,000 lectures since the start of the semester—not bad for a school with an enrollment of 38,000. Drexel, Stanford, Duke and American University have begun course-casting programs, too. ``So far, we`ve heard mostly positive feedback about it,`` says Lynne O`Brien, head of Duke`s Center for Institutional Technology. But critics complain that digital lectures delivered through earphones cut down on the vital interaction between professors and students. And parents, who shell out tens of thousands of dollars for tuition, aren`t convinced that kids who rely on the lectures-to-go are getting their money`s worth.

Students don`t expect their parents to understand. Course casting delivers traditional components of higher learning in a format kids love—most have been downloading their favorite songs onto their iPods or MP3s since high school. Purdue sophomore Andrew Stephens says the recorded lectures are crucial to his success. A self-described multitasker with a short attention span, Stephens admits he skips out on more classes than he should. Last week, when he wanted to catch up on Biology 101, he simply listened to the lectures he missed—in his car. Distracted? He`d hit replay. Confused? He`d pause his iPod, and pull out his biology textbook later to look up some key terms. The best part, Stephens says, is the convenience. ``I don`t have to get up early or walk to a lecture in the snow.`` He doesn`t have to worry so much about taking notes either: the lectures can be archived and replayed before a test.

Despite such obvious upsides, some academics worry that much is lost when sophomores scroll between audio files of a philosophy lecture and the latest hit by Franz Ferdinand. Students learn an important skill when they are required to show up for a lecture: creating a schedule and sticking to it. Being in class keeps them in regular contact with professors, which, experts say, is a key to keeping dropout rates low. Lectures, too, force students to focus for long, uninterrupted stretches. Course casting might work, says Lee Knefelkamp, a professor of education at Teachers College at Columbia University, if a professor is trying to deliver facts and concepts for later regurgitation. ``Students can listen to that anywhere.`` But a topnotch lecture, says Knefelkamp, ``should be provocative, catch you up short and make you think in ways you never have before.`` Those kinds of intellectual epiphanies, she says, rarely happen at the laundromat.

But converts say course casting is an easy way to add a much-needed jolt to the large introductory courses most departments must offer to underclassmen each semester. Students ``aren`t interested in absorbing every word like passive sponges,`` says Richard Lucic, a computer-science professor at Duke. Weaned on fast-paced music videos and thrill-a-minute game systems, students often complain that 90-minute lectures are mind-numbingly dull. The technology makes it easier for professors to enliven lectures with guest speakers and primary-source material. Some professors actually act more like DJs than Ph.D.s, composing musical intros, adding gong sounds, jokes and other aural cues to emphasize important ideas on the digitalized version of their lectures.

At the University of Hawaii, sophomore Alexandra Esquibel will attend her introductory computer-science course exactly three times this semester: once when she learned how to download lectures, and again for the midterm and the final. In between, she listens to her professor David Nickles lecture on her iPod while she`s walking across campus to her other classes. Alexandra likes the convenience of course casting, but the new technology doesn`t sit well with her father, Ruben, an accountant in Denver. He thought he was paying $14,000 a year for classroom instruction and worries that Angela is being cheated. ``I mean, what is your degree really worth,`` says Ruben, ``if you got it by listening to your iPod?``

Even course-casting fans say there are drawbacks. Given the option of not showing up, many students won`t. ``We`ve been concerned that it makes it a little too easy not to have the classroom experience,`` says Stanford University`s Victoria Szabo. To ensure attendance rates stay high, Stanford professors wait a month before making their lectures available on the Web. Staging can help, too. These days, Purdue criminal-forensics professor David Tate makes sure every one of his live lectures includes key visual components like blood-spatter patterns or bomb-disposal techniques. Students who opt to listen rather than attend, he says, ``miss a whole lot.``

American University professor Patrick Jackson thinks he may have found a way to harness the full potential of course casting and to keep classroom seats filled as well. Next semester, he`ll make his international-relations lectures and supplemental audio material required listening. Then he`ll dispense with what he calls being ``the sage on the stage`` altogether and use his lecture periods to guide mandatory group discussion instead. ``It`s a new opportunity to ensure all my students have critical engagement with the material,`` he says. And that`s an idea that students—and their parents—are ready to hear.

© 2006 Newsweek, Inc.