Please, PLEASE stop saying that online lectures aren’t as much work. You have no idea how much work is going into this.

Yep! I’m doing it. It’s a thread. https://twitter.com/hl_murray/status/1312670807198445569

Firstly - no one wants to deliver content like this! We’d all rather be in the classroom, but it isn’t safe - and that’s that.

When people hear “online learning” I’m not sure what they think this is. I can only assume some people think we are sticking a few YouTube clips online and FaceTiming a few students for a quick natter.

NO! Online learning is so much more labour intensive than face to face and I’ll tell you why. Looking at my modules, pre-covid, all the students would be in the room and we’d talk about that weeks texts / film / theories, etc.

Maybe there would be a PowerPoint, but mostly it would be a discussion. I can read the room, see what’s working and adjust accordingly. I would facilitate the discussion but it would be largely student led. You cannot do this online.

I cannot see the students if they don’t have their camera on & even if they do, I can’t interact with them like I did before. There is very little space for free flow of ideas and discussion, because Teams doesn’t really facilitate this in a meeting of 28 people

So, what do you do? You have to meticulously plan and structure each session, some running to several hours, down the last minute to make sure the students know what’s going on and can stay engaged. But can’t really use group work and have to keep discussion limited.

So, this is really you on camera for two hours with some space for questions. Can you fill two hours talking to a camera? Can you put together PowerPoints, reading exercises, and class materials to do this?

So basically every course, every module has had to be torn up & redone because it won’t work in its old format. Everything has been restructured, reformatted, & rewritten.

Then you also have to make sure all the materials are accessible online if anyone has missed the lecture - this has basically meant every lecturer building interactive websites for each module via the virtual learning environments.

Pre covid, these online spaces were used for posting links or secondary materials. Now they have been completely overhauled to provide an immersive learning platform. This is a good thing, but it has been done in three months, with no training, and all on top of existing work

All lecturers has also have to learn how to use Microsoft Teams - & when I say ‘use’ I don’t mean log on, I mean learn how to teach with it. Use it to link with VLE, create live streams, virtual notebooks and classroom content. Again, all in 3 months in addition to standard work

Believe me, going into the classroom to talk to students was so much easier than trying to fill hours and hours of just you talking and make it interesting. We’ve turned into YouTubers who deliver live content several times a day!

This isn’t easy. This is very challenging & most lecturers I know have worked throughout the summer, giving up holidays to get this ready. I don’t know anyone whose workload hasn’t doubled as a result.

You can criticise online learning because of the lack of face to face contact, or because it is harder to stay focused staring at a screen, and we know it’s not as interesting as being there in person - but you cannot say lecturers aren’t working hard!

And generally we aren’t whinging about it. We are just doing it, but when articles like today’s Guardian are published saying we’re not delivering seminars online - yeah, we’re gonna whinge.