Online and out of time

One of my mantras is that unless we do the online better, we cannot make use of the offline opportunities. Online, should allow us to make better use of the bedside. The following are some quotes from an FT article on MBA degrees.

The great thing about a virtual classroom is that your students are already in a digital format, which means you can run algorithms that recognise patterns in facial expressions to assess understanding and identify students’ emotional state and levels of attention in your class,” says Prof Boehm. Analytics can be used in real time to address students whose attention is wandering or later to improve teaching plans or faculty performance, he adds.

Teaching staff also find students to be more engaged in the virtual classroom. “Because of the way students are positioned on the wall, a headshot from the chest up, it’s very difficult for them to text on their phones or work on their PCs,” says LizHess, managing director of HBX. “It’s very easy for faculty to see if people are distracted — they joke that there’s no back row any more.”

The technology looks terrific in the images shown. But there are other factors at play. Note the group sizes are small in comparison with what many undergraduates receive, and the investment in technology is focussed on those who pay most (upfront). If you look at the money apparently going into medical education, this should be the norm for most undergraduate medical students.