Colleagues - most of the emails I've seen on this topic correctly
elide 'learning' 'cos no-one knows what that is.
The positions seem to be taken around the process of delivery or
the process of measuring the arrival (or otherwise) of the delivery.
The availability of 'new technology methods' of delivery has
delighted few (bean counters, usually) and perplexed many
(teachers, usually).
But to get at the root of e-learning we need to understand the
process of receipt, not of delivery. Previously, the only reliable
scientific tool we had was to measure the results of arrival (or
otherwise) of the delivery.
Abstract, "thought experiments" can be used by philosophers to
hypothesize what changes occur in the learner post-delivery so the
experimenters can go measure something new.
'New technology' offers more. We can start to measure the receipt
of delivery in new ways. Instead of teacher - almost
subconsciously - feeling a grip on the class, we can now count
such things as keystrokes, visits to answer gardens, number and
type of e-dailogues used, downloads, time spent with e-material.
Of course, we need to retain old-fashioned assessment to measure
the results of delivery, but now we have a richer dataset on the
process and the prospect emerges of correlating arrival of learning
with delivery of teaching as measured by assessment after-the-fact
with a repeatable delivery process.
I get all these ideas from Phil Crosby's books about quality and
this is where you may get a lacuna in my email.
Is e-learning about training pigeons or about educating people? Or
is it even more trivial - forgettable point-answers to problems that
dissolve once solved?
Alan Jones
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Dr. Alan Jones, http://www-scm.tees.ac.uk/users/a.jones/
IT Response Unit (e-commerce for Small/Medium Businesses)
University of Teesside http://www.tees.ac.uk/ITResponse/
School of Computing and Mathematics
Cleveland TS1 3BA email [log in to unmask]
Tel +44 1642 342 681, 342 633 fax 230 527
personal 07971 245 456
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