I've been reading Stanford's Engineering Everywhere lectures, and the thing I'm most impressed about is how much support there is for students:
Course-specific computer labs with course-specific lab assistants to help you walk you through problems as you're coming up against them in learning to code!
Sections with section leaders who grade your code in front of you and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your coding style!
There is no advantage to a huge lecture hall over a podcast. But in-person mentoring, one-on-one human interaction is the best way to learn if you can afford it.
Agreed. I'm a TA for a CS course here and we have open office hours where the students can come and do their homework and ask questions as they come up, which I can then answer on the board (I'm not going to say if it's black or white so as not to alienate those who apparently feel strongly about this issue), benefitting not only the student with the question but also whoever else is there. I've had students help each other in my office hours too. That's not something you're going to get with SEE.
Is it possible to tell the difference between in-person presence and immersive telepresence?
Yes. I say this as a parent of a pioneer class student in Stanford's EPGY Online High School.
I'll acknowledge that the several examples I have seen (not just EPGY OHS) of distance learning courses have far from immersive telepresence, but I think there is evolutionary adaptation to real-world, in-person conversation that isn't taken advantage of by any distance learning communication mode I have seen.
Course-specific computer labs with course-specific lab assistants to help you walk you through problems as you're coming up against them in learning to code!
Sections with section leaders who grade your code in front of you and discuss the strengths and weaknesses of your coding style!
There is no advantage to a huge lecture hall over a podcast. But in-person mentoring, one-on-one human interaction is the best way to learn if you can afford it.