Matt Yedlin, Cyprien Lomas, Ulrich Rauch- P2P in the virtual classroom

Dr. Yedlin is quite a charismatic professor (even though he says he isn’t) and he and Ulrich Rauch and Cyprien Lomas have obviously thought a lot about modeling student teacher interaction using physics models. Very cool to see the visualization of teacher/student interaction.

Some pushback from the audience: maybe we don’t need technology like wireless and tablet PCs yet, maybe we just need to train professors on simple personal interaction (walking around, engaging students, etc.).

I think that all attempts to ignore technological disruptions are futile. And modeling is a good idea but it can only go so far.

I agree with Ulrich, teachers have to change their interactions with students to cope with technology. No matter what you do, the technology is going to happen.

Eric from SUNY Fashion Institute of New York - Accept it, leverage it, deal with it! Try it out, put it in the curriculum. Don’t make it ABSTRACT, make it real; relate it to professor’s realities. Community is not the end result. It’s the byproduct of community activity.

Pushback from a student-not here to interact with other students or the Internet, here to learn!

Matt - when this interaction between students as well as the learner occurs, then more learning happens.