Webcast Technology

As much as I dislike writing about University life (I prefer to share some of my reviews or some gaming videos), I just have to write something about it today, about how I finally appreciate (really appreciate) the Webcast feature that iVLE offers (something useful at least :D).

Well, for a *normal* module, with a *normal* timing (during the day) for its lecture(s), I will definitely attend lectures without fail (assuming I’m healthy and well, no other emergencies happening in my life etc) since I still find it *usually* more conducive to understand and learn whatever is being taught there. Somehow, the feeling of being there and listening to audio streamed through the Net is vastly different *most of the time*.

I’ve always thought the whole idea behind having a webcast is to allow students who missed the lecture to watch it or for students who need to recap on certain things said during lecture to be able to do so at their own time and pace (or in the case of CS1101S, to let the NUS High students to “attend” lectures as well.). I’ve never thought of using the webcast to be able to fast track through a lecture on the *first* hearing/sitting. After all, I’m supposed to be dealing with University stuff after a 2.75 year break from academic studies and logically should expect myself to be coping well at best and not finding things going to slowly.

However, after my first experience on Monday “watching” a webcast and attending the 2nd lecture of the week “live” at the LT, I’ve somehow decided I’ll be sticking to the webcast feature, unless of course I need to be there for things like Midterms or whatnot. Why is that? Oh well, let’s see… there are a number of reasons why I’ve decided to take the same course of action as Wai Kit.

1) The lectures are 6-8pm, not a very desirable timing, even if my school day doesnt end early.
2) The presentation of the lecture is pretty much self-reading and understanding, while the lecturer is usually reading off the slides, para-phrasing it the 2nd/3rd time. Sometimes he even say some wrong things, which is ZZZ. And of course, sometimes there are “irrelevant” slides with content that obviously wont be tested. ever.
3) The content is either pretty much similar to other things I’m studying now or they are quite easy to understand because of some “background knowledge”. So I can actually breeze through it faster than the lecturer is presenting, which is like a weird feeling lah. It’s not supposed to happen since I’m not like a certain genius who finds Uni Maths easy. Haha. (ok, out of point =P)
4) I’ve observed that the lecturer usually gives out his tutorial question (he used to print for us) and I can happily do the tutorial during his lecture while he’s repeating the main points or something, thus killing 2 birds with 1 stone. And since today he decided to upload 2 tutorials (which are meant for week 5 and 6), there isn’t much motivation to go for his lectures anymore. Hahaha.

Of course I will attend the Midterm quiz lah. 20% of grade. And I’m sure the LT will revert back to its week 1 glory in terms of occupancy rate. Hahahaha.  Other than that, it’s webcast for me. IVLE better be working… =_=

p.s. saw Guangrong today. +1. More to come I suppose… And wordpress seems to have a little problem with their server now. Blehx.