What's Cool
- Nikki
What's Not Cool
Lynda.com's interface limits its adaptability to new learning opportunities that may have otherwise been seized in a classroom. Rosen writes, "Technology cannot and never should replace curriculum or content. The curriculum should drive the technology use, rather than allowing the technology to dictate the curriculum" (Rosen 214). Lynda.com's technology definitely limits it's effectiveness to learn material quickly and completely. The training videos are numbered into consecutive chapters. Also, videos by nature are linear forms of communication. This linear sequence of administering information can put a hold on spontaneous questions that will arrise about other facets of the particular software one was learning. (For instance, you may not know why you are unable to select something by simply clicking on it.) When questions do arrise, finding the solution soon is key to connecting the material for memory. I suppose someone could search for their answers by simply glancing the various chapter titles, but in many events, the user will not know what what the particular keywords are for their specific troubleshoot. Rosen continues to write that, "Learning environments should allow for teachers to interrupt students, for students to interrupt other students, even for students to interrups teachers when appropriate."
You cannot merely watch the videos to learn the material. Nicholas Carr draws on Eric Kandel, a Nobel Prize winning neuropsychiatrist, for insight into the process of memory. "For memory to persist, ... the incoming information must be thouroughly and deeply processed. This is accomplished by attending to the information and associating its meaning fully and systematically with knowledge already in well established memory." (Carr 193) Therefore, you cannot expect to retain the software tools learned from Lynda.com in your memory, unless you are able to connect it with previous experience and are able to understand its applications.
The videos are very long, and many users do feel very bored while watching multiple videos that each could be as lengthy as ten minutes. Rosen writes "[Online courses] are too static of an environment for an entire course" because of the lack of socialization and the lack of multiple learning modalities (Rosen 220). Being trapped in headphones and listening to a monotonous voice speak for extended periods of time can be very uninteresting. Distractions (especially social ones that this technology isolates us from) will creep in and cause for interrupted learning. Perhaps Lynda could use more immediate positive reinforcement and interaction, like that of playing a video game. In the books, Rewired and Rethinking Education, both agree that online courses could have a lot to learn from video games (Rosen 49) (Collins & Halverson 84) . While Lynda.com does allow you to download exercise files to work along the training video, this service comes at an additional cost. Even if you use the exercise files, being forced to stop what you are thinking to repause and replay the videos over and over again is not the ideal way operate a web browser which will inhibit the seamless learning workflow that educational environments strive for.
- Steven
I think that lynda is a very cool site. I'm currently working on learning how to program for iOS there, and I'm glad I don't have to sift through pages of technical jargon to figure it out. Personally, I think it's effective for those who are choosing between lynda and a textbook, but I don't think it can replace a physical teacher.
ReplyDeleteI think that one of the big questions is whether we could one day use sites like lynda.com to replace teachers as a whole. Personally, I think education is more effective when it's interactive, and part of going to school is learning to communicate and socialize with others. Maybe lynda could add a comment system similar to what's available on blogger for people to gather and ask questions, and to discuss the material? If it's live, it could even act like a realtime classroom discussion. Then again, part of effective communication (especially if you're a child) is body language, so I don't really think that the internet the way it is now can replace a conventional classroom environment, particularly for early ages.
Yes, Lynda.com does have a 'FAQ' that you can email questions to. I'm a Lynda user as well, but unfortunately I don't have experience using the FAQ section. Regardless, your answer cannot be addressed instantly, which may cause a hold on your workflow.
ReplyDeleteI agree with your point on effective communication existing in body language. Visual body language and facial gestures can be very important for learning and memory, and especially is visual learners. Rosen does touch on this in Rewired.
I always use Lynda as a refresher course to figure out how to do a particular task or use a specific tool on a program. I think the quote we used in cellCONTROL is also applicable here (using technology to limit technology), except now we're using technology to learn how to use more technology.
ReplyDeleteWhile convenient, I don't think that online education courses could ever compete with real-time, one-on-one interactions between teacher and student.
I think Lynda is a cool site because it gives a new option of learning. As we discussed today, education and the learning experience are based on the learner. We each learn in a different way: some of us need to take notes, others listen and reread material,some never go to class and pass by posted lecture notes, etc. These kinds of technology open up ways for people who may best learn in this way. If you are a visual learner, such as described in Rewired, then you probably won't use it. Does it make it bad? No, it just means it has a limited demographic, but I have a feeling that ,as technology continues to expand into our lives, the demographic will grow as people learn using technology such as this. Maybe one day sites like this WILL be the educational system, anything is possible.
ReplyDeleteI think that Lynda is a great resource for many different people. It is most effective, I believe for people who are trying to learn something just for fun. While it may be useful to someone who is attempting to learn a program for school or their job, I don't think Lynda alone can impart a real understanding of a certain program. You can't ask questions the way you can ask a human teacher questions, and going back and re-watching a video is not the same. Used as a study aid, and not as a teacher, is, in my opinion, the way to get the most out of Lynda.
ReplyDeleteNearly all students—those without a classroom, those struggling in the classroom, and even those who have complete mastery of the classroom—can benefit from Lynda.com. This site provides a different perspective than that found in the classroom, which could provide additional enrichment for a successful student or just the right words for a struggling one. The ability to pick a teacher from a multiple of teachers allows students to glean knowledge at a variety of angles.
ReplyDeleteWilliams states, rather crudely, that “the young men and women who have benefited by the extension of public education and who, in surprising numbers, identify with the world into which they have been admitted ... spend much of their time, to the applause of their new peers, expounding and documenting the hopeless vulgarity of the people they have left” (as cited in Storey, p. 40). Lynda.com and other online extensions of education set apart their users from nonusers, whether there was formal education in place or not. These resources increase human development by increasing the standard of living in third world countries while speaking to the adaptable, modern, digital lifestyles of citizens in first world countries.
Lynda.com provides excellent resources for learning a new subject; however, the site fails to provide the important connection between teacher and student. The personal interaction, explaining of questions, and personal clarification are lost when using an online site for educational purposes. As Turkle bluntly states in her book, "The ties we form through the internet are not, in the end the ties that bind. They are the ties that preoccupy" (Turkle, 280). I believe that this site is great for taking a new task, such as learning how to operate and iPhone, and figuring it out through the videos that are very clearly and amazingly done on Lynda.com. The site falls short, though, on the connections made by teacher and student. These connections are what truly define education.
ReplyDeleteWith that being said, I stumbled upon a theory called "The Flipped Classroom." (the link is at the bottom of my post) This new classroom idea poses the idea of using online lectures at home, and then using class time to interactively work on homework. This idea stemmed from a high school in Colorado and that school's experimentation with this idea. If Lynda.com became used for education in this way, I feel like this site would revolutionize education. Students could learn at their own pace, as long as they stay within teacher's ultimate deadlines, and they can go to class with prior knowledge to the information to truly delve in to the homework and form analytical questions. In Clintondale High school, the Flipped Classroom Method allowed for a 30% decrease in number of students who failed english and math as well as 500 less cases of discipline that year. This high school clearly shows the benefits Lynda.com could have. So in summary, Lynda.com is an amazing site as long as students have the opportunity to interact with a teacher in a classroom setting along with the site. Lynda could be the leading site in the reshaping of education as technology grows.
http://www.peterpappas.com/2012/01/flipped-classroom-infographic-explanation.html
I feel like Lynda.com is a great learning resource and that it should be used not for more than accompanying and assisting a learning experience. It should not entire replace classes or the traditional way of learning. A vast number of people prefer a learning environment that involves a physical teacher, classroom, and classmates. The social interaction that occurs in this traditional education setting is vital in learning and this is largely lost if we solely rely on Lynda.com. A digital method of learning is limiting and is not the same full, deep, and fulfilling experience with the lack of physicality and active participation and live feedback. It is great for specific purposes but should never replace education through physical schooling.
ReplyDeleteI think Lynda.com is great! How helpful it is to a person really depends on what type of learner that person is. One of my professors used to record all of his lectures and post them on Youtube so students could go back and look at those if they had trouble understanding something or if they missed class. He also recorded tutorials and posted them online. We all enjoyed those videos and some people stopped going to class altogether because they felt like they had everything they needed without having to go to class, but most people still went to class. So I think even though forms of education like Lynda.com cannot completely replace the real classroom setting but it's a wonderful resource for all students.
ReplyDelete