By Tony Bates. First of all, thanks to the numerous people who commented on  my earlier posts on Why Lectures are Dead, and on Learning Theories and Online Learning. These were previews of chapters for my open textbook, Teaching in a Digital Age.
This feedback was particularly helpful, because several people commented that there are lots of different kinds of lectures. Read more...

By Tony Bates. In the end, I can’t see how a discussion of learning theories can be avoided. Unless readers of the book have this basic understanding of the different views of learning, they will not be in a good position to make choices, especially regarding the use of technology for teaching and learning. In particular, I see a danger of becoming dogmatic and blinkered by unchallenged assumptions about the nature of learning that results from not exploring alternative theories. But lastly, as Kurt Lewin said, there is nothing more practical than a good theory. Read more...

By Tony Bates. Lectures go back as far as ancient Greece and Roman times, and certainly from at least the start of the European university, in the 13th century. The term ‘lecture’ comes from the Latin to read. This was because in the 13th century, most books were extremely rare. They were painstakingly handcrafted and illustrated by monks, often from fragments or collections of earlier and exceedingly rare and valuable scrolls remaining from more than 1,000 years earlier from ancient Greek or Roman times, or were translated from Arabic sources, as much documentation was destroyed in Europe during the Dark Ages following the fall of the Roman empire. As a result, a university would often have only one copy of a book, and it may have been the only copy available in the world. The library and its collection therefore became critical to the reputation of a university, and professors had to borrow the only text from the library and literally read from it to the students, who dutifully wrote down their own version of the lecture. Read more...