University costs

pinkfluffybabe

Oldernotwiser wrote:

This seems to be a thread where the younger people want to have resources on paper and those of us who are older have grasped the idea of putting things online rather better.

ahem, I am 26, not sure if that qualifies as old tho........

pinkfluffybabe

studentphil wrote:

I think you can not highlight stuff very well on a screen and you can not just pick it up and read it at any time regardless of if you are on a PC. Paper has many advantages.

There are a variety of tools that can be used to highlight online. Paper does have advantages but it also gets wasted if you print off things that you won't read. It is also bad for the environment to use too much.

studentphil

pinkfluffybabe wrote:

There are a variety of tools that can be used to highlight online. Paper does have advantages but it also gets wasted if you print off things that you won't read. It is also bad for the environment to use too much.

Yeah, but I can read it on the bus or sat in bed. You can highlight in word that is true.

Oldernotwiser

pinkfluffybabe wrote:

ahem, I am 26, not sure if that qualifies as old tho........

Sorry about that - just me then!

Gabriel-Ernest

When I was at Uni nearly 30 years ago, we had no lecture handouts and nothing electronic. We made notes by hand and we read books either bought or borrowed from libraries. Be grateful for what you have because frankly you have it easy now!

Oldernotwiser

studentphil wrote:

Yeah, but I can read it on the bus or sat in bed. You can highlight in word that is true.

If you need materials for you to study on the bus or sitting in bed you can print them off. Other people may not need to do this so the university is giving you the choice.

Sammz

Departments don't have the money to provide thousands of pounds worth of copying to students. It's that simple. We used to charge for course leaflets, notes etc but the time involved in that was ridiculous so I got it changed to online only. Course readers (copies from books) do still get printed though and students are charged the actual cost.

Serenity

It is an extra resource for you, be grateful! Printing is expensive and you don't need it printed. In one of my classes this year we had a vote, either the notes were put on-line or the lecturer gave us handouts. We voted overwhelmingly for the former. As has been said previously even a few years ago all notes had to be taken by hand during the lecture.

studentphil

Gabriel-Ernest wrote:

When I was at Uni nearly 30 years ago, we had no lecture handouts and nothing electronic. We made notes by hand and we read books either bought or borrowed from libraries. Be grateful for what you have because frankly you have it easy now!

The modern diversity of learning methods means that chalk and talk is becoming less and less used and lecture handouts are considered important as the lecture is a poor teaching format. Mainly because it is proven that people can not listen for more than 20 mins.

Whilst I accept your point compared to 30 years ago, maybe it is just a product of educational enlightenment.

studentphil

Serenity wrote:

It is an extra resource for you, be grateful! Printing is expensive and you don't need it printed. In one of my classes this year we had a vote, either the notes were put on-line or the lecturer gave us handouts. We voted overwhelmingly for the former. As has been said previously even a few years ago all notes had to be taken by hand during the lecture.

Again the usefulness and need for lecture handouts is probably high given the ineffective nature of lectures.

Lectures fail to provide instructors with feedback about the extent of student learning.
In lectures students are often passive because there is no mechanism to ensure that they are intellectually engaged with the material.
Students' attention wanes quickly after fifteen to twenty-five minutes.
Information tends to be forgotten quickly when students are passive.
Lectures presume that all students learn at the same pace and are at the same level of understanding.
Lectures are not suited for teaching higher orders of thinking such as application, analysis, synthesis, or evaluation; for teaching motor skills, or for influencing attitudes or values.
Lectures are not well suited for teaching complex, abstract material.
Lectures requires effective speakers.
Lectures emphasize learning by listening, which is a disadvantage for students who have other learning styles.

http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/archive/cl1/cl/doingcl/advlec.htm

So maybe after thinking about that you could make a case for having paper lecture handouts during the lecture than online afterwards is possible.