Education

Rise of the ‘homozappians’

Collegerama at TU Delft is revolutionising and digitalising the ways that the university provides students in Delft and around the world with educational information.

Students traditionally have 101 reasons for missing classes and lectures, ranging from unbearable morning hangovers to faulty alarm clocks. Now they have 102: Collegerama’s comprehensive recording of lectures means students increasingly have the option of ‘attending’ lectures online – anytime and anywhere.

The story of Collegerama – a method developed by Multimedia Services (MMS), a TU Delft-affiliated organisation situated in the 3mE faculty building – begins back in 2004, when a group of forward-thinking people realised that the centuries-old era of chalk and blackboards was ending; that is, that the concept of lecturing was changing, that digital learning was growing globally and that students had become web-minded, gadget-masters – or ‘homozappiens’, as Leon Huijbers, manager of MMS, calls this new breed of student.

As an ambitious university, TU Delft needed to meet these changing needs by making its educational content available online to everyone. The Collegerama method of recording scientific content and publishing it on online also fit perfectly with contemporary demands for more flexible and effective educational systems. To remain internationally competitive, academic web-broadcasting was a must.

Although Collegerama’s recording schedules are now fully booked, back in 2004 none of university’s faculties showed much interest in these newfangled ideas. “It marked a huge change and everyone needed time to adapt,” Huijbers says. Consequently, the Collegerama team struggled to find opportunities to prove its worth, until one day the breakthrough came: a highly esteemed professor at the faculty of Applied Sciences (AS) announced he was leaving the university, at which point AS quickly moved to record the professor’s expertise before he left.

From that point Collegerama’s growth was rapid; once the first professor agreed to perform in front of the camera, others quickly followed, and soon online lectures were popular among TU Delft’s tech-savvy students. Over the next two years Collegerama recorded and published online some 700 lectures; today that figure stands at 8,000 and growing.
Collegerama is currently expanding in multiple directions beyond web lecturing, including special educational videos recently launched on TU Delft’s iTunes site, which are specially recorded in Collegerama’s web-publishing studio.

Mobile
Collegerama had initially used fixed operating units situated in several lecture rooms, but this proved limiting, so over the years they’ve developed more flexible recording methods. Collegerama currently deploys 11, student-operated mobile recording carts that can bring the system into any room on campus, while also still using fixed units at faculties, like 3mE, that have huge demands for web-lecturing. Collegerama also provides a solution to faculty overcrowding: the technology allows lectures to be simultaneously projected in multiple rooms, which is frequently done at faculties that have more students than large rooms to accommodate them.

Collegerama, an independent entity working closely with TU Delft’s Education & Student Affairs department, draw its clients from across the Netherlands, including other universities and the Dutch Ministry of Defense. Additionally, they had 300,000 online visitors from around the world in 2010 and have multimedia relationships with 45 universities in the UK.
Collegerama’s ‘think big, act small’ growth model has three focal points: students, the main users, with the focus on improving content and publishing online quickly; the organisation, creating a fully automated system that’s easier to handle and manage; and teachers, demonstrating to them Collegerama’s possibilities and seducing them into using the latest technologies, like digital paper.

Huijbers admits that teachers can still be a bit old-fashioned and hard to seduce. “That first moment of hesitation still exists,” he says, “but it’s more bearable than it was in 2004.” Recording lectures in fact has multiple positive effects, including helping teachers to hone their lecturing skills. “It’s possible to see the teachers’ improvement after three trials,” says Huijbers, adding that while there’s some natural development involved in this process, teachers should still rehearse more. “It’s important for lecturers to realise that teaching is similar to a stage art, in which, as actors, they must capture their audience’s attention.”

Collegerama is a young brand backed by an ambitious team that believes its methods can help catapult TU Delft to the top of the European university league tables. “Collegerama is indeed useful,” Huijbers concludes, ”but it won’t achieve its highest possible efficiency unless web-lecturing becomes part of the curriculum.”  

www.collegerama.nl

Op christelijkwonen.nl staan advertenties voor kamers in door christenen bewoonde studentenhuizen.

Volgens onderzoek van de twee Groningse studenten die het concept bedacht hebben, wonen christenen het liefst met andere christenen in een huis.

De oprichting van de website viel niet bij iedereen in goede aarde. Kritische christenen vinden dat gelovige studenten juist bij niet-gelovigen in een studentenhuis moeten gaan wonen, om zo het woord Gods te verspreiden.

Maar voor de twee Groningse studenten die christelijkwonen.nl hebben opgericht, is het belangrijker dat christelijke studenten op kamers wonen in een huis waar ze zich thuis voelen. Doel is elkaar te steunen en te sterken als christen in het dagelijks leven.

Eerder werd al een soortgelijk initiatief gelanceerd: ook studentenstekkie.nl biedt kamers aan in christelijke studentenhuizen. Over initiatieven met speciale kamersites voor moslims, vegetariërs en liefhebbers van Nederlandstalige muziek is niets bekend.

Editor Redactie

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