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A simple observation, but one I’ve been bumping into all kinds of ways lately.

In the traditional division of courses into Content, Interaction, and Assessment, lectures are part of that block of “interaction”. And that’s why, for example, when noodling around with how to put OCW onto a platform like WordPress, it seems normal to have the readings as “Pages” (e.g. static content), and the lectures as “Posts” (e.g. interaction). A lecture, even when delivered from a typed sheet, is well contextualized — given in a specific context to a specific set of people. That’s weak interaction, but interaction nonetheless.

That’s why video lectures are fascinating — because they are treated more like content. Students watch them at warp speed, and even those of us who don’t hit the double-time button hop around, skip ahead, jump back, and review.

There’s a couple approaches to this. One is to let lectures slide into contentdom. As interaction, they were pretty thin gruel anyway — we can build that portion of the course on better ground. Another is to return to the event-based model, using a tool like the one that Tony Hirst has designed that autoposts lectures on a certain schedule, to provide that feel of interaction.

I’m interested in both. Some of my most treasured educational memories are of moving as a cohort with a good group of students through a class week by week, continuing the discussion where a professor’s lecture had been the first volley. That format, of time and context sensitive exposition followed by discussion is far from dead — indeed, it’s the very format that has made the blog a successful medium in areas where a fourm + content model has failed. My answer to the question, were I forced to answer today would be this — video lectures are content that we’re trying to get the interaction back into, via adding timing or surrounding social networks….

But that’s my thought on it today — I’m interested in what the rest of you think.