A life of a student

WOW, I am so excited! I was just accepted into the South African team to participate in the Fencing world Championship! Travelling to Budapest, Hungary to represent my country and practice my sport at the highest level is such a privilege.

Oh wait this is in the middle of the semester and I will miss at least a week of class just before the semester tests. Will this mean that I have to choose between my sport and studies?

What if there was a way I don’t have to? What if I am able to watch the lectures online while I am away and then come back not having missed anything to write the semester tests?

Adapt this fictional story to some scenario that fits you, being sick, attending a family crisis or just having an opportunity to do something now or never. It is easy to see how online lectures would be great in this situation but even just having the choice of when to watch a lecture and not have to waste countless hours on campus waiting for a lecture with a 2-3 hour break.

As if that was not enough reason to like this new method of teaching, that technology has given us, You will also be able to choose the lecturer that you relate to the most, where as before you would have to go to the lecturer that fits in you time table. Also all of the lecture don’t have to change each year, so if the lecturer just hit the nail on the head last year for a certain topic, you can now enjoy that moment of brilliance the next year as well. Please see the end of the post for a list of links explaining further advantages.

Most of the students must a agree that the advantages are pretty big, but a lot of the students that I talked to are very apprehensive about the whole concept because of a few reasons:

• I won’t be able to motivate myself to watch the lectures.
• I want the social interaction that I have in class.
• I will get distracted when I am in front of my PC.

These are all legitimate problems that has to be addressed but it was not easy to sail to China or to a create a world wide web, but it was done and the results was just amazing.

So this is my call to all students and faculty please don’t let this opportunity to enhance learning go to waste, let each one of us try to improve the experiences so that we all benefit from a richer and more productive education.

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