Twitch-streamed lectures hailed as future of blended learning

Earlier this week University of Alberta Provost James Fasth took to Twitch in order to announce a pilot project of bringing lectures onto the popular streaming platform.“Blended learning is about giving students the freedom to choose how they learn, and encouraging self-regulation,” he explains. “Students can now more efficiently spread their time between reading the textbook chapters of the week, watching the assigned YouTube videos, and, of course, following the stream.”Blended learning is a class structure with a 50/50 split between classroom instruction and online learning. The replacement of lectures by Twitch streams is presumed to be the next stage of this learning approach after the project was proposed to the Board of Governors in March.       During the stream, Dr. Fasth admits he was inspired by his son during an episode at the dinner table. “We were just eating when I saw him looking down at some flash of light… he told me what it was and I thought, ‘Oh my God, this is genius.'”