by Derek Morrison, 29 May 2011
The concept of the “retweet” is now well established and so there was also scope for an older sibling the “reblog”
This one was spotlighted by Stephen Downes’ excellent OLDaily last week but the topic is so important I’ve decided to spotlight Rob Jenkins’ article Why Are So Many Students Still Failing Online? (Chronicle of Higher Education, 22 May 2011) again here. Rob raises some pretty uncomfortable points regarding the, at times, questionable employment of online learning for reasons other than the purely pedagogical. Although we should be cautious of direct application to other cultures it would, nevertheless, certainly be useful to get a sense of what are the comparative attrition figures in the various European HE sectors for: undergraduates; postgraduates; and those undertaking continuing professional development (CPD). The long term impact of employing online learning for CPD which is linked to maintenance of a position on a professional register rather than providing (or insisting upon) the more expensive face-to-face development experiences is also an area worthy of further study. Don’t get me wrong, my enthusiasm and belief in the power of technology to generate good when utilised ethically and in an informed way is undimed but my enthusiasm is increasingly being tempered by a growing caution; and Rob is right to want us to look at his “elephant in the room”.
