Studying Online;Succeeding through Distance Learning at University

112 Studying online 
video services means that studying online using video is recent 
history. Tat’s why a great deal of online video for education is 
still somewhat experimental. You will see lecturers trying out new 
ideas and some failing to succeed. Tat’s because it is so new to 
education. After all, universities have been around since the elev-
enth century: the frst university was founded in 1088 in Bologna, 
Italy. Tat’s over 900 years of teaching, but online video teaching 
only having been available for less than a decade. 
Te novelty of online video teaching is visible to all students. Some 
of the videos you watch will be highly professional, with lecturers 
who are comfortable being TV presenters. However, you will also 
discover video lectures that are poorly presented with presenta-
tion techniques that are sadly lacking. Most lecturers have years 
of experience in a lecture theatre and have learned what to do 
by observing their own lecturers doing the same thing when they 
were at university. Nowadays, though, with online video, there is a 
signifcant lack of experience due to its relatively recent introduc-
tion. As a result, when studying online, you will face some brilliant 
material and some inadequate lectures, to say the least. 
It somewhat reminds me of an event several years ago at the Uni-
versity of Cambridge. I had helped organise a conference for doc-
tors which was held in the Peterhouse Teatre, one of the oldest 
lecture theatres in what is the oldest Cambridge college. Te place 
was steeped in history. We had organised every last piece of tech-
nology you could imagine for all of the guest speakers. Howev-
er, one of the speakers – a Cambridge professor and Nobel Prize 
winner – had not notifed us of the presentational equipment he 
would require. As far as we, the organisers, were concerned, we 
had everything. Tis professor was to give the opening keynote 
address. At the time the conference was scheduled to begin, he 
had not shown up. I was frantically trying to fnd him and sug-
gesting to the conference chairman how he might “fll” until we 
could track down the prof. As people were settling into their seats, 
a door at the back of the stage opened and in walked our keynote 
speaker. He had a pile of papers in his hand and shufed across to 
the podium where he placed all his notes. Ten he looked around 
at all the technology provided and asked, “Is there a blackboard 

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