Different and slightly surreal…
Good morning, dear readers… Or afternoon, rather, seeing I’m sitting down a little later than normal for me today.
Mother’s Day weekend was fun. Sarah and I did breakfast with her mother up in Debary, and called her mother in Utah, and we called my mother over in Spring Hill. So all mothers were covered. It was a very nice day.
And then, this morning. We had some cleaning to do around the apartment, which was interesting to do. From there, I had class. The first day of classes of my last semester. The beginning of the end.
I found it sort of interesting, though. The class I went to this morning was one of the video streaming classes, so while we might be sitting there in class, there are hundreds of students registered and watching the recorded stream of the video online at their convenience. Needless to say, there were only 7 students in class. For me, this was a completely different sort of experience. I had taken a video streaming course last semester, but the seated lecture that was recorded coincided with one of my classes, so I never went. But to be one of only 7 people that this teacher was interacting with in person, and to know that over 300 other students were watching this, not knowing who was/wasn’t in the room? Just surreal.
That’s what technology does for people nowadays, I guess… Lets us be where we cannot, and sets up these weird sort of perpetuating placements where anyone can be anywhere watching anything at the time at their convenience. Heck, its like a DVR, but for school.
Had a good lunch with my friend Davi at the new Chinese place on campus where we shot the shit about politics and the fun stuff with some teachers that we’ve both had, and then here home, to work out some kinks with my iPod. I’ve been having issues with the scrobbling software I use, and I had switched applications, and hadn’t switched everything right. So looks like I’m slowly working on getting back listens that I used to have.
Small things in life keep it going around.
I’ve taken two video streaming classes.
My economics video streaming class was actually two different sections, the in-class section and the streaming section. I actually prefer sitting in a class, but I needed to take econ and it was my only choice to do video streaming. I didn’t really like it, I had a lot of trouble doing the lectures “at my convenience”… which was typically never. However my prof did do really good at making sure the video students felt involved. She had the camera pan the class at times, and students in the class would ask/respond to questions.
I had another video streaming class this past semester that was terrible. The class didn’t have an actually live section, so the professor would typically record lectures from her office or hotel room (she traveled a lot for her research, which was why she was “too busy” to actually hold class). The whole hour and a half lecture was a camera pointed down at a desk (like a doc cam) and she would just write notes… and keep writing, and keep writing… it was VERY boring to watch and had no video of the prof herself just speaking, or anything of the like. I stopped watching after the first exam.
Good luck with the class! I recommend you keep going, at least you get to ask questions in real-time (not via e-mail).