E-Pedagogy: Does e-learning require a new pedagogy?
5
The emergence of e-learning
As part of the technological revolution, the use of e-learning, or blended learning, isincreasing. This is particularly true of Higher Education, which offers most programmespartly or wholly online. In the future, e-learning is likely to be more widely used in thetertiary and school sectors. Another driver for e-learning is life-long learning, whichrequires on-going training and re-training of the adult workforce.In many cases, e-learning is delivered through a virtual learning environment (VLE),which is a custom built environment designed for online learning. VLEs, such as
Blackboard
and
Moodle
, typically provide all of the software tools required for onlinelearning such as communication and file sharing facilities. These environments are oftenmodelled around the traditional campus, providing ‘virtual staff rooms’ and ‘onlinecommon rooms’. E-portfolios provide the digital equivalent to the traditional paperportfolio; these typically provide online storage for a range of media types (such asdrawings, photos and videos). Dedicated e-assessment systems, such as
Questionmark
,facilitate large-scale online testing, providing many of the question types that arefamiliar to teachers.Some academics have pointed out the potential of e-learning to improve current practice.Garrison and Anderson (2003) write:“E-learning has significantpotential to alter the nature of theteaching and learning transaction.In fact, it has caused us to face upto some of the current deficienciesof higher education, such as largelecturers, while providing somepossible solutions or ways tomitigate these shortcomings. Seenas part of pedagogical solution, e-learning becomes an opportunity toexamine and live up to the ideals of the educational transactiondescribed previously.”
New learning opportunities
The changing environment facilitates new kinds of learning. Teachers have traditionallyfocussed on content; indeed, many consider the identification and delivery of learningmaterial to be their prime role. But it has been argued that the traditional skill of contentcreation is redundant in the information-rich learning environment. Some of this contentis very high quality, even world class, and certainly superior to a hurriedly producedhandout of the type often used by busy teachers.It has been suggested that the contemporary teacher should be more “guide on the side”than “sage on the stage”. The ready availability of information makes
facilitation
moreimportant than
direction
. The pedagogic issue is not too little information but too much:the contempora
Alicia Fernandez on 19 Jun 14In order to respond to learners' need for more flexible speaking opportunities and to overcome the geographical challenge of students spread over the United Kingdom and continental Western Europe, the Open University recently introduced Internet-based, real-time audio conferencing, thus making a groundbreaking move in the distance learning and teaching of languages. Since February 2002, online tutorials for language courses have been offered using Lyceum, an Internet-based audio-graphics conferencing tool developed in house. Our research is based on the first Open University course ever to deliver tutorials solely online, a level 2 German course, and this article considers some of the challenges of implementing online tuition. As a starting point, we present the pedagogical rationale underpinning the virtual learning and teaching environment. Then we examine the process of development and implementation of online tuition in terms of activity design, tutor training, and student support. A number of methodological tools such as logbooks, questionnaires, and observations were used to gather data. The findings of this paper highlight the complexity of the organisational as well as the pedagogical framework that contributes to the effective use of online tuition via audio conferencing systems in a distance education setting.
