E-LEARNING OCCUPATIONAL HAZZARD

AUDIO EARPHONES GOOD AND BAD FOR LEARNING

Earphones are great to listen to your favourite music or replay your ipod downloads of academic materials. It gives you a sense of privacy. You feel whether you are shut of from the outside world while replaying it. Allthough academe is constantly concerned about route learning practices like repeating the same facts over and over again without individual interpretation, live recordings cannot be compared with this problem. It is because your brain integrates multiple associations in the listening process of recordings. It simultaneuosly remembers subconcious knowledge that you were holistically exposed to. It integrates past learning experiences since your birth. The way the individual mind reacts to sound differs totally from silent reading or learning. The ear and the inner mind are interconnected to store personal as well as interpersonal impressions. Each individual mind experiences or interprets it independently. For example, it is recommended that students replay recordings of lectures the moment they are awakening after a good night's sleep while their minds are clear and calm and not perturbed by external stimuli. It is believed that the brain absorbs more new knowledge early in the morning. Some students will differ from this statement because they may prefer to replay it at random.

It is a proven method of learning. However, we have to make students aware of the dangers of hearing damage as well. As educators and scientists we prepare the leaders of tomorrow. But we do not want you to be ignorant about hearing loss. Soldiers, pilots, machine operators and various industrial workers are trained to wear ear protection according to Occupational and Health Safety (OHS) regulations. Likewise you must know that you need only destroy 25 % to 30 % of your hair cells and hearing loss will occur ( Life. 2006/7). Life Healthcare also warns that listening to loud back play at 80% capacity on your ipod or MP3 player for more than 90 minutes per day may also destroy the tiny hair cells in your inner ear canal.

The unfortunate part is that you only realise it after 10 years! Then it is too late to recover from this occupational hazard. Subsequently we want to urge you to play your lectures on ipods and MP3’s at a safe level and only for short periods as well. We do not want to train a highly educated but deaf society...You can ask any deaf person how difficult it is to lead a normal life within a world of hearing…
Compiled by Kallie de Beer.