You’ve finished recording your minilectures. How did it go?
‘You’ve just seen it for yourself. I took a while to get up steam but then it went smoothly. The dress rehearsal last Monday didn’t go well at all so I spent all day last Sunday practising. By the time I got to the third lecture, I had the feeling that it was working out.’
How was this different to normal lectures?
‘It’s difficult to keep to the plot for 15 minutes without PowerPoint. I know I give good lectures as I get good scores from students. But that’s 45 minutes of talking with slides. This was: look this way, go and stand on the X, look into the camera. That made it difficult for me to concentrate on the story.’
Will you be drawing lessons from these video lectures for when you’re back in the lecture hall?
‘Not really. Perhaps I could choose a slightly more populist approach when explaining ideas. But it’s nice that these lectures will soon be online so that I can refer students to them. It can certainly be interesting for students who are just starting.’