Top 10 Reasons to Teach Distance Using IVC

Kevin Young(yes, it’s kevin.young@usu.edu)

Reason Number 10

• No students come crying to you about their grades during your office hours

Then again. . .

• Your Inbox may be bombarded with sob stories.

Reason Number 9

• You save yourself the anguish of hearing your students’ cell phones ring

Then again. . .

• You have no idea if your students are talking on their cell phones while you are talking!

• (Actually you may know a phone is ringing by some interference in the system—students are always surprised when I know a phone is ringing without actually hearing it!)

Reason Number 8• You can pretend you’re a famous TV host

Then again. . .

• You really AREN’T a famous TV host. You will not get paid any extra for developing a TV persona.

• Some people are more nervous about looking at a camera than about standing in front of a room of students—you DO get used to it.

Reason Number 7• You can teach 200 students in a 8 X 10 ft room

Then again. . .

• You may end up with 200 students! In itself this may not be a problem, but Blackboard will automatically generate a class site for each section of your class. – This may mean reposting the same assignments

over and over– You CAN ask the FACT center to get all of your

sections merged into one

Reason Number 6• You can check your email and call it work

Then again. . .

• The time you spend dealing with emails may go up significantly. – On a particularly busy weekend this summer I did

not check my email on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. On Monday I had over 175 student emails to deal with!

Reason Number 5

• You can scratch your nose while doing PowerPoints and nobody will know it

Then again. . .

• You may THINK you are broadcasting your PowerPoints when in fact you are still on camera!

Reason Number 4

• Using Adobe (Breeze) software, a webcam and a microphone, you can set up and record an online meeting so that your entire lecture is available to students to listen to again.

Then again. . .

• Do you really WANT your lecture to be available? Do you really WANT all the dumb things you said recorded for posterity?

Reason Number 3

• The technology works really well and the connection is almost always flawless

Then again. . .

• It’s only a matter of time before something does NOT work well, and you may lose significant amounts of time to technical delays.– If nothing else, rebooting the system (usually on

their end, not yours) tends to fix problems– You are not left alone to solve these problems

• Your own lack of knowledge may cause frequent minor technical problems

Reason Number 2• IVC is SO much better than teaching over

satellite!

Then again. . .

• When senior faculty hear you are teaching over IVC they will bombard you with stories of the way it “used to be.” Not only will you hear about the horrors of the satellite system, but you will also hear about the “flying professor” program!

Reason Number 1• You only have to get dressed from the waist up!