Michael Wesch has been on the lecture circuit for years touting new models of active teaching with technology. The associate professor of cultural anthropology at Kansas State University has given TED talks. "Wired" magazine gave him a Rave Award. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching once named him a national professor…

When video recordings of Ravi Janardan's computer-science course at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities first went online, the students loved it. Instead of dragging themselves out of bed for the 8 a.m. lectures, many started skipping classes and watching the recordings instead. Recording lectures is becoming more and more common, and many…

Many college students are paying others to attend lecture classes and take notes, a practice that angers many professors and caused one university to sue a note-taking company over copyrights. Although students and some faculty say the notes are helpful in large, impersonal classes, others say they encourage poor attendance. (MSE)

Students of Coppin State University are using a system that merges video recordings of class lectures with a digital version of the students' own notes. The system, sold by Tegrity Inc. is unusual in its use of an electronic pen along with digital recordings, with administrators and faculty members believing that the technology would improve…

In an article in the "Northern Star," a university student newspaper, reporter Lauren Stott began a lyrical note: "It's every student's dream: Wake up for school, stumble over to the computer, and download the day's class lectures ... then crawl back into bed--iPod in one hand, notebook in the other." The object of the student journalist's…

Faculty have designed alternative ways to hear from their students. The use of a box for comments and questions at the back of a University of Vermont chemistry class and an online computer conference to enhance writing classes at the University of Michigan are described. (MLW)