Much is being said about alternative learning techniques, Professor Cranky posts his weekly rant on these ideas.
I suspect that the student who does not read the book does not listen to the lecture on the iPod either, and no one will ever convince me that listening to a lecture while driving a car and not taking notes and not having any non verbal communication is effective.
One either wants to KNOW the material or one does not, changing the delivery system does not change their desire to learn material if the overall idea is
well I gotta take a darned accounting class and I sure do hate it…
remember the Willie Nelson lyrics, gotta get drunk and I sure do hate it….
Okay here is the iPod, the choice is
Beyonce
Celine Dione
Pat Green
Dennis Elam on cash flow statements
Hmm gee that's a tough one depending of course on your music tastes, ah er I want ah…..
I sat in a meeting where we were supposed to learn how to put an online class on power point,
the lady in charge said we should use different dissolves between slides, I pointed out that was no different than turning the pages of a book
She replied, well you can see students are not reading! The implication I guess is that a clever dissolve will get them to move to the next slide, the love of learning will not
There are no clever dissolves from page to page in the Gleim review books for the cpa exam by the way
Despite all the 'you just do this for fifteen minutes three times a week and you will look like this 120 lb cute model'
on cable tv we all know that is bunk, you have to quit eating junk food and work out two hours at a time three times a week
and sweat like (insert sweating analogy here)
but few want to embrace that idea
And so schools and book companies jump to new delivery systems
A realtor told me that now you can take an online review course for the realtor exam
the pass rate for the realtor exam has dropped from 75 to 52%, this is what I am talking about
IN a recent ethics class out of 20 senior students not one could describe maselow's heirarchy of needs
Gee did we need a more entertaining iPod lecture on that?
changing delivery systems does not change
desire for learning
or the effectiveness of one on one communication
or writing notes in the margin of the book
I used to outline the ideas before an exam. I would get the thrown away computer paper from the mainframe Control Data 3300
which tells you how old I am
and write out the scenario of how we got into and out of various wars in this century
I got the high grade on the final exam out of 400 students in Foreign Diplomacy since 1890
I am not telling you that to brag but to make a point
I would not have done that by say listening to Dr. Divine, the instructor for that class, on my radio, the same tech then as the iPod now
I will grant that one can learn the lyrics to a two minute song by listening to an iPod, or a radio
I still know the worlds to Pencil Thin Moustache and most of the words to Life is Just a Tire Swing, both J Buffet tunes
And the latter came out while I was studying for the cpa exam……
Dennis
.
Professor Elam 
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