Why do institutions provide e-learning systems?

08-December-2005

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[ ICT and learning ]
We assume students will provide their own word processors - be they proprietary or open source. Why then do we persist in providing e-learning systems. Not because of generosity I would suggest but because institutions are desperate to maintain control.

Was on an airplane this morning looking at Scott Wilson's presentation on the 'Architecture of Virtual Spaces and the future of VLEs'. Traveling seems to be about the only time I have at the moment for reading things like this (to tell the truth I was idly cleaning up my desktop when I found it). I have long felt that VLEs are both unnecessary and primarily a system for institutional control so was well happy to find someone else basically reiterating such ideas.

I was very struck by Scott's somewhat throw away line: "There is also a conversation about what exactly public education institutions ought to be providing - should they provide e-learning systems, or just provide basic wi-fi network access and expect students to have their own systems?".

I am not so sure that there is such a conversation going on but there certainly ought to be. We assume students will provide their own word processors - be they proprietary or open source. Why then do we persist in providing e-learning systems. Not because of generosity I would suggest but because institutions are desperate to maintain control. Allowing students to provide their own systems would be a big step in encouraging them to take control of their own learning and at the same time focus institutions on implementing standards based support and information systems which support a variety of different pedagogic approaches.

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Graham Attwell; 08-December-2005 11:35:57;

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1 e-learning systems

There is a bit of a discussion going on, with some people taking the position that we already have an e-learning system thankyou very much and it's name is "the internet". See Blackall also Downes, Siemens and Cormier. Oh, and possibly also Powell
Andy Roberts, 08-December-2005 21:42:13

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1 A Personal Blackboard - take 2

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