via Curmudgeon - Responses to Intimacy at a Distance

While I'm not an advocate of abandoning the classroom for the computer screen, a thought experiment occurred to me during this presentation, which I put to the panel, and now put to you. Suppose that the status quo is learning at a distance - the teacher is at a computer with a video camera and microphone, the students all at home at their computers. The teacher conducts class remotely, the students are able to respond via chat. And suppose that we've been doing this for a long time, that we know it to be effective when done right, that some teachers are better at it than others, but that, generally, we're satisfied with this mode of delivery. Then one of our colleagues sends us an email:

"I did an interesting thing the other day. I invited all of my students to come and meet me. I rented a meeting room, and we all got together and discussed the class material. I think it went pretty well, and I had the feeling that the students thought so too. I'm not sure if it enhanced their learning experience at all, but I'm going to keep doing it on occasion."