Long post about "e-learning" ...

I was at the Future for e-learning Research day at Bletchley Park last week (http://kn.open.ac.uk/public/index.cfm?wpid=2843) where lots of folk from conventional universities plus a few from the UKOU spent the day debating future prospects, funding and programmes for e-learning research. It struck me that for many of them the prospect of delivering e-learning to their students was raising new concerns that we in the OU have been dealing with since we first sent boxes of course material to our distant students way back in 1971 - i.e. they have lost the control that comes with proximity and presence - the control now has to be embedded in the e-learning material. 'Control' is perhaps not the right word to use … motivation / stimulation / incentive / rationale / interaction might be better? What, if any, lessons are there for e-learning in OUr experiences (e.g. from SAQs - self assessment questions buried in the text)?

At the CALRG 25th Anniversary last Friday (http://iet.open.ac.uk/research/calrg/index.cfm) the phrase "you become what you measure" was used … meaning, I guess, that if learners know that they are to be assessed on some criteria they will endeavour to better their performance with respect to those criteria. Given that e-learning enables us to deliver material in new ways and for learners to engage with those materials in new ways … should there also be the new criteria and new ways of assessing their performance?

Exchange is a collaborative publication born out of various UK partners' collective objective to enhance learning and teaching. The partners are:

The National Co-ordination Team based at the Centre for Higher Education Practice in the UKOU
The Learning and Teaching Support Network
The Institute for Learning and Teaching

Issue 6 of Exchange focuses on 'e-Learning', it is available at: http://www.exchange.ac.uk/ - it includes contributions from Martin Oliver (What is a Learning Technologist?), Grainne Conole (The role of research in informing practice) and Allison Littlejohn (From learning objects to learning design).

The Thwarted Innovation: What Happened to E-learning and Why report is published by the University of Pennsylvania. This study sought to answer the question "Why did the boom in e-learning go bust?" Over an eighteen-month period authors Robert Zemsky, an education professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and William F. Massy, professor emeritus of education and business administration at Stanford University, tracked faculty and staff attitudes towards e-learning at six colleges and universities. The complete report is available online in PDF format at: http://www.irhe.upenn.edu/Docs/Jun2004/ThwartedInnovation.pdf. It raises Administration and Management concerns about e-learning that will need to be countered.