Reflections on the role of self-paced, online resources in higher education or how youtube is teaching me how to knit

In higher education sectors around the world, lecturing remains the mainstay of teaching and learning practice (see Bligh, 1998; Jones, 2007). This is despite the fact that countless high-profile and widely read scholars have shown that the pedagogic value of lecturing is questionable (see Bligh, 1998; Gibbs, 1981; Laurillard, 2002). How it has come to be that lecturing persists remains the focus of much speculation (see Jones, 2007). It may be the case, however, that lectures have finally met their match in the form of online, self-paced, on-demand resources. As the availability and number of these resources grows, the viability of face-to-face lecturing as a teaching and learning strategy becomes increasingly tenuous. In this chapter, the authors outline the impact that these resources are having on pedagogy and curriculum design in general and in higher education in particular. They offer a case study of the use of this strategy in a higher education context within an English Literature module. The authors conclude by offering some reflections on their own experiences as on-demand learners and offer some suggestions as to how university teachers and the institutions for which they work may need to rethink the way they operate.