Zooze the Horse roams around the pasture near Lamar State College. Zooze thinks about problems in academia. Zhe wants proffies to submit posts (blog posts, not fence posts).
Monday, February 27, 2017
"Why professors object to being recorded," explained somebody.
I'll have to side with the view expressed at National Review. The potential damage caused by recording remarks made by their classmates outweighs any benefit of exposing inappropriate remarks by faculty.
Aren't we required by law, at least in glorious Socialist state of California, to allow disabled students to record us anyway? The disability center required me to allow a student to clip a microphone on me at the beginning of every class.
You could have protested that (at least in my state). A student who needs the notes can also be given them by you, or by a student volunteer (using one of the page copying notebooks) or even have a paid or volunteer (I had the student's mom once) note taker in the room. I believe we go to this kind of trouble at Inner City Community College not for the benefit of the professor, but instead for the privacy of fellow students who don't like to be recorded. That having been said, you can record with your pen nowadays, so professors should always assume they are being recorded.
What worried me most about this was how, with only ten minutes between classes and often with demos to set up for all the students to see, I didn't really have time between classes to stop and have one student clip a microphone on me. Sure, we could make the time, but the result was that every class started late for the other 100 students in the class.
A similar situation arose when a football player came to me at the beginning of every class to have me sign something to show his coach that he'd attended class. I gamely went along with it, since there could be consequences for me for even saying that I didn't have time to do this. Still, I couldn't help but wonder whether it was stretching what constitutes "reasonable accommodations." Since when is doing this really my job? And what happens when I get ten students who want this?
I don't know. I've had students with an accommodation letter record me. I have them sit in the front row and they are responsible for their own audio issues. It has only happened a couple of times, the students reported no problems, and there was zero hassle for me. In the most recent instance I had the student share the audio files with me. It was interesting to listen back.
I'll have to side with the view expressed at National Review. The potential damage caused by recording remarks made by their classmates outweighs any benefit of exposing inappropriate remarks by faculty.
ReplyDeleteI forgot the link: http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/445189/recording-professors-may-not-be-good-idea
ReplyDeleteThanks, BB. I didn't realize NR had done a point/counterpoint on this. Someone had just sent me the Prager essay. Here's a clickable version of the link you provided:
Deletehttp://www.nationalreview.com/corner/445189/recording-professors-may-not-be-good-idea
Aren't we required by law, at least in glorious Socialist state of California, to allow disabled students to record us anyway? The disability center required me to allow a student to clip a microphone on me at the beginning of every class.
ReplyDeleteYou could have protested that (at least in my state). A student who needs the notes can also be given them by you, or by a student volunteer (using one of the page copying notebooks) or even have a paid or volunteer (I had the student's mom once) note taker in the room. I believe we go to this kind of trouble at Inner City Community College not for the benefit of the professor, but instead for the privacy of fellow students who don't like to be recorded. That having been said, you can record with your pen nowadays, so professors should always assume they are being recorded.
DeleteWhat worried me most about this was how, with only ten minutes between classes and often with demos to set up for all the students to see, I didn't really have time between classes to stop and have one student clip a microphone on me. Sure, we could make the time, but the result was that every class started late for the other 100 students in the class.
DeleteA similar situation arose when a football player came to me at the beginning of every class to have me sign something to show his coach that he'd attended class. I gamely went along with it, since there could be consequences for me for even saying that I didn't have time to do this. Still, I couldn't help but wonder whether it was stretching what constitutes "reasonable accommodations." Since when is doing this really my job? And what happens when I get ten students who want this?
I don't know. I've had students with an accommodation letter record me. I have them sit in the front row and they are responsible for their own audio issues. It has only happened a couple of times, the students reported no problems, and there was zero hassle for me. In the most recent instance I had the student share the audio files with me. It was interesting to listen back.
ReplyDelete