> I think it's quite obvious that it's better to watch a recorded lecture than to see the teacher perform the same lecture years after year. Ah, actually, it's

> I think it's quite obvious that it's better to watch a recorded lecture than to see the teacher perform the same lecture years after year. Ah, actually, it's not. For instance, a number of studies unequivocally showed that an infant learns nothing in front of an televised education program. A young child cannot learn a language from a visual recording, but somehow can if the child sees the same thing live. Somehow the screen seems to screen of the magic. As we get older and learn to focus our attention ourselves, this becomes less important. But direct human contact, even through a mere lecture, still counts. So my guess is that while mechanised teaching (not just videos —we' have computers for Omega's sake!) has certainly great potential, merely replacing the teacher by a computer, even part time, is probably not optimal.