Implementing Learning Support Systems

Kearsley (1998) writes that “technology is often seen as a quick fix, a siren song,” and warns that “educational technology is a distraction … from what matters most— effective learning and good teaching.” The approach taken often seems more in the vein of entertainment than education, with television-type material creating an expectation of how information will be presented; the linkup of the Internet and television through streamed video may just exacerbate this. It is our view that information technology (IT) is unlikely to create empty institutions delivering distance learning, but is more likely to create distance less learning, which is actually more accessible to all potential students. What this implies, and few in the academic professions yet understand properly, is that the whole business of delivering teaching is likely to be transformed in a way that has not happened for generations. While it is possible to develop IT-based approaches that, to some extent, mirror traditional methods of remote learning by isolated individuals and which has little or nothing to do with lifelong experiences or expertise, most academics will find themselves forced to confront very basic questions about what it is that they are trying to achieve and how they might best go about achieving those desired outcomes.