Look out for Lynda – she can be a great help in and out of the classroom
Do you ever wish that you could spend longer teaching your students the technical skills they need to achieve in your subject? Have you ever thought how helpful it would be if there was another one of you in the class to help individuals through any difficulties while you carried on teaching?
While cloning is not yet a possibility, there may be an alternative solution to some of these problems.
Professor Chris Barlow, Head of Solent Acoustics, has found that Lynda.com is flexible and extensive enough to extend the learning beyond the classroom and provide his students with the specialist help they need, whenever they need it.
Along with other media like links to journal articles and YouTube videos, he also embeds resources from Lynda into SOL, customising according to what his students need and expanding the core unit materials.
Lynda offers a wide range of training and learning resources on everything from research methods, statistical analysis, computer programming, time management, project management, and audio and video editing.
You may not always know who you have in your classroom. What is everyone’s skill set? How confident are they in those skills? What background knowledge do they arrive with?
Regardless of the answers, you only have finite time with your students each week. Some will be really keen, and want to know as much as possible. Others will also be keen but need walking through some specialist skills. Not all students will arrive with knowledge or experience of qualitative research, for example, or they might need a bit of extra help using a particular piece of software.
Lynda can carry a bit of that load, it’s just a question of finding the relevant resources and embedding them into SOL where they will be useful. We have a site license at Solent so all students can access it, on and off campus.
So, look out for Lynda – she can be a great help in and out of the classroom.