Description of Article Learning technology has taken many strange turns in the last 100 years. I say this, because perhaps not surprisingly, the twelve gold standard academics chosen by Boxmind to demonstrate their system are very old school, and all male. But wait - here's the exciting part. For the full Boxmind experience, the screen is divided into four quarters. In the top left is a small video of the chosen academic speaking his lines.
Top right are the slides that accompany the talk.
Just like the real life experience, these are variable - in some cases, there are none at all, others are low quality while a couple are reasonably interesting to look at. Then, in the bottom right quarter there's a transcript of the talking head - raising the question of why we need the talking head at all. Finally, in the bottom right, there are some limited web links that don't seem to be particularly related to the 'e-lecture'. To begin with the model of the learner and teacher, in the Boxmind system the learner is a passive recipient of the knowledge supplied by the expert teacher. All aspects of the design of the system support this - from the double whammy of the talking head and the transcript to the unimaginative OHPs and the very limited web links.