Vignettes from the Field
Snapshot
Maria |
Student |
Discipline |
Life Sciences |
Enrolment status |
External |
Year |
3 rd Year |
Experience |
Positive |
‘I did two degrees in the 1990s. Coming back to uni now and finding (WBLT) is there has really added a lot to my ability to study and to work. It’s actually been really good.’ Maria
Maria’s story
Maria is currently in her third year of an undergraduate degree in Life Sciences. For some of her units she is enrolled as an external student but she sometimes attends lectures on campus. She is very interested in the field she studies, ‘but it’s usually time that makes me restrict my study. So… it’s a time factor in there rather than an interest factor’.
WBLT and learning
Maria finds she has ‘a lot more control’ over her learning with WBLT. In one unit, she deliberately skipped lectures and did it all on (WBLT) because (the lecturer) mumbled too much. She could repeat the parts of the lecture that were unclear the first time she heard them.
The lecturer’s attitude to technology also has an impact on whether Maria uses WBLT to replace face-to-face lectures:
I think this may sound very funny, but I tend to pick my iLectures based on the lecturer. If the lecturer is like one lecturer that I have who absolutely hates anything remotely technological and is a real visual person, using overhead projectors and lots of things on the board, I find I’ve really got to be there. But if the person is really up to date with their technology, and has very clear PowerPoint slides, then I know I can miss it and catch it later on at night.
WBLT as a back up when the unexpected happens was also seen as valuable by Maria:
Yesterday I got a flat tyre, and I was half an hour late to a lecture. I missed a whole raft of important announcements, so I listened (later using WBLT).I was really grateful that I could do that, because (the flat tyre) was beyond my control.
Maria commented that not all lecturers are happy to use the new technology:
We do have one lecturer that complains every time (he) puts the microphone on. So, there’s still a little bit of resistance in some areas of academia to that particular technology.
Another (lecturer) I spoke to said that she admitted that she could’ve made better use of (WBLT) and lecture slides and all these sorts of things, but chose not to because she thought students needed an academic challenge in some other way to finding out the information themselves. I thought that was a bit weird.
Impressions of WBLT
Maria has found that WBLT has had a positive impact on her communication with the lecturers and other students:
I tend to have a lot less face-to-face time and I don’t need to go and see a person in their consultation hours. If I miss something I listen to it on (WBLT) and if I’ve got any questions, I email them. That’s probably a broader technology thing. I find I would take up less of my lecturer’s time as a consequence of that. In terms of interacting with fellow students, discussion boards are really good when they’ve been made use of. For example, when people would ask a question about an assignment and a fellow student would answer. So sometimes you’d get some interesting debate relevant to the subject on discussion boards
Despite the efficiency WBLT enables, Maria also sees benefits in attending face-to face lectures when she can:
I pick and choose who I (use WBLT)with, depending on the lecturer, and in a sense, it depends on how dynamic they are. There’re some courses that are very well structured and you can really use (WBLT) comfortably with discussion boards and you feel like you’re participating in the subject. There are other (subjects) where being able to meet your fellow students and go down to the coffee shop and discuss things, or ask questions, or get things very quickly resolved is important. I think this is very much lessened by not being able to have that face-to-face lecture time.
Learning Futures
Maria is concerned that, whatever happens with technologies, the on-campus experience should not be lost to students:
I think that as human beings one of the things that we all like to do is to feel we belong somewhere. If you replace that with technology, then you might still get your nice graduates, but perhaps some of the richness which universities are supposed to be about, might go.
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