Content-type: text/html Downes.ca ~ Stephen's Web ~ Book review: Teaching in the Post Covid-19 Era

Stephen Downes

Knowledge, Learning, Community

Tony Bates reviews Fayed & Cummings (eds) (2021) Teaching in the Post Covid 19 Era. I'm not about to shell out $US 169 for this book, even if that works out to around $2 per chapter. As he says, "no-one is going to read this 764 page book from end to end. Readers are going to dip in and out." He also suggests that though it offers "many examples here of innovative teaching, particularly using synchronous technology," the lack of a comprehensive index, unifying themes, or sense of organization mean it's really basically a list of related articles. Also, readers "would think that online learning was invented in March, 2020. Very, very few of the articles made any reference to all the 30 years of research." Finally, as Bates says, "the real problem here is not online learning, but what are increasingly outdated and ineffective lecture methods, which become even more ineffective when transferred online without modification. That surely is one of the most important lessons from the pandemic." The other - to me - was the value of open publishing. Too bad all this work will remain hidden from view, with nobody but the most dedicated (like Bates) reading it.

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Stephen Downes Stephen Downes, Casselman, Canada
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Last Updated: Apr 25, 2024 8:30 p.m.

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