On Thu, 6 Dec 2001 13:39:39 +0000 Oleg Liber <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:

> eLearning can potentially offer much IF we can focus on what our aims
> are for education. First we need to understand that formal education
> already employs a sort of technology - that of buildings, classrooms,
> timetables etc. - and that these create constraints. But these are
> necessary to allow us to deal with the fact that we have many more
> learners than teachers. Electronic learning environments give us a
> different way of handling this problem, but create a different set of
> constraints. But they give us new set of possibilities too - to support
> learning at different paces, to support better self organised learning
> activities that can be monitored by the teachers and where necessary
> allow interventions to be made, to capture learners' contributions and
> use them in the assessment process, to more rapidly have access to
> learners' profiles - I could go on. Some of these can be realised
> through the use of discrete learning tools, more can be done by well
> integrated collections of tools (VLEs) and some require integration of
> VLEs and student information systems (MLEs). Sandy Britain and I
> attempted to elaborate on this in our report on the evaluation of VLEs,
> to provide a way of thinking about how VLEs can be creatively used. I
> firmly believe that they represent a significant development in
> education, but not if they are used to simply map traditional models on
> to cyberspace.

I couldn't agree more with Oleg.  A little quote for you:

"By attempting to push all of a student's university education onto the
Net and retaining conventional pedagogy, universities simply risk
making inaccessible all the valuable insights into communities that
students previously gathered by default."

This is from "Universities in the Digital Age" by John Seely Brown and
Paul Duguid - not lightweights in the educational world.  (see
http://www.parc.xerox.com/ops/members/brown/index.html)


> But I fear that the current rush to adopt eLearning
> systems will result in these important pedagogic and organizational
> questions not being addressed.

My fear is greater!  I think there is a real change of "throwing the
baby out with the bathwater" in the current rush, which, as Oleg has
said, displays scant concern for either educational or business
strategy or goals.    This will mean that students will vote with their
feet, "early adopters" will become disillusioned, and all this great
potential for actually improving the learning experience our students
get will be lost.  (And possibly Oleg and I will be unemployed!)

best wishes

Mark


Professor Mark Stiles
Co-Director
The Learning Development Centre
Staffordshire University
The Octagon
Beaconside
STAFFORD   ST18 0AD
Phone +44 (0)1785 353647
FAX +44 (0)1785 353645

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