Tuesday, September 14, 2004

Teaching thoughts

I am in the middle of a series of lectures on the near history of the new media, and I try to communicate to the students the amazing developments. But the 50 something who showed up for the lecture last week had this glazed-over look on their faces. I guess I need to lean back a little today, relax and feed them smaller snippets. My lecturing style normally reflects an intense wish to just beam massive amounts of data right into their heads.

Anyway, some links I have found for today's lecture, which others may find useful:
Windows timeline: a useful representation of the development of windows
A little history of the world wide web
The history of Mosaic
The world wide web consortium - or W3

Tomorrow it's hypertext structures. Then I guess I just have to turn on the computer and show them some interesting examples rather than forcefeeding them facts. I love that, but technology doesn't really go over well when I use it for the big lectures. It may be that I feel too uncomfortable with it, or it may be the "what can go wrong will go wrong" law. Teaching is an ongoing process of self-evaluation.

2 comments:

Jill said...

It's amazing how MUCH one knows that one still hasn't transferred magically to one's students by the end of a semester.

I suppose it took us a lot more than a single semester to learn it. But it would be lovely if that beaming just worked!

Torill said...

If it's not working, it's not from my lack of trying! I am so beat after a lecture it feels like I have been doing psycic weightlifting. Or had all energy sucked out by psycic vampires. Who knows...