Microlectures

Kind of an interesting idea - These Lectures Are Gone in 60 Seconds:

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Take a 60-minute lecture. Cut the excess verbiage, do away with most of the details, and pare it down to key concepts and themes.
What's left? A "microlecture" over in as few as 60 seconds. A course designer for San Juan College, a community college in Farmington, N.M., says that in online education, such tiny bursts can teach just as well as traditional lectures when paired with assignments and discussions.
Skeptics, however, argue that lectures involving sustained arguments, such as literary analyses or explanations of complex equations, cannot be boiled down in this way.
At San Juan, microlectures were introduced in a new online degree program in occupational safety in the fall and are now expanding to subjects like reading, tribal governance, and veterinary studies.
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I wouldn't expect these to be very effective for most topics. One of the reasons for longer lectures it it takes time to develop complex ideas. Another reason is repetition helps to drill the basic concept down into the student's brain. Neither of these works with a sixty second lecture.

(Hat tip: AssortedStuff)


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