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Innovative Seminars
Seminars are, generally, a form of academic instruction, either at a university or offered by a commercial or professional organization. They have
the function of bringing together small groups for recurring meetings, focusing each time on some particular subject, in which everyone present
is requested to actively participate. This is often accomplished through an ongoing Socratic dialogue with a seminar leader or instructor,
or through a more formal presentation of research. Normally, participants must not be beginners in the field under discussion (at US
universities, seminar classes are generally reserved for upper-year students, although at UK and Australian universities seminars are
often used for all years). The idea behind the seminar system is to familiarise students more extensively with the methodology of their
chosen subject and also to allow them to interact with examples of the practical problems that always crop up during research work. It
is essentially a place where assigned readings are discussed, questions can be raised and debates conducted. It is relatively informal,
at least compared to the lecture system of academic instruction.
In some European universities, a seminar may be a large lecture course, especially when conducted by a renowned thinker (regardless of
the size of the audience or the scope of student participation in discussion). More and more as the Internet develops, Seminars are being conducter online.
Internet Seminars offer those with knowledge to share a very inexpensive global worldwide reach.
They open up new opportunities for synergies with multiple languages and cultures that are beyond the typical classroom and several day seminar environment.
Seminars have been presented in churches, businesses, christian school conventions and homeschool conventions. Life Changing Seminars has also
presented their material to colleges for both enrichment material and college credit.
Brown bag seminars are generally offered to update the researching community about ongoing research. Usually held by schools and universities
and governmental institutions, they involve lectures, presentations, or talks by researchers, mostly professors about their ongoing research.
Professors may visit from other universities to talk about their research.
Brown bag seminars normally run an hour or two. Originally they were scheduled around lunchtime and participants were encouraged to bring
their own lunch in a bag, explaining how the practice got its name.
Types of distance education courses:
- Correspondence conducted through regular mail
- Internet conducted either synchronously or asynchronously
- Telecourse/Broadcast, in which content is delivered via radio or television
- CD-ROM, in which the student interacts with computer content stored on a CD-ROM
- PocketPC/Mobile Learning where the student accesses course content stored on a mobile device or through a wireless server
- Integrated distance learning, the integration of live, in-group instruction or interaction with a distance learning curriculum
Distance Education has traversed four to five 'generations' of technology in its history. These are print, audio/video broadcasting,
audio/video teleconferencing, computer aided instruction, e-learning/ online-learning, computer broadcasting/webcasting etc. Yet the
radio remains a very viable form, especially in the developing nations, because of its reach. In India the FM Channel is very popular
and is being used by universities, to broadcast educational programs of variety on areas such as teacher education, rural development,
programs in agriculture for farmers, science education, creative writing, mass communication, in addition to traditional courses in
liberal arts, science and business administration. The increasing popularity of mp3 players, PDAs and Smart Phone has provided an
additional medium for the distribution of distance education content, and some professors now allow students to listen or even watch
video of a course as a Podcast. Some colleges have been working with the U.S. military to distribute entire course content on a
PDA to deployed personnel.
Source References and additional reading:
- Wikipedia.org, the free encyclopedia
