Cultural and Organisational issues
In a previous section of this infoKit, we presented an educational paradox: tutors are today expected to teach larger numbers of students while, at the same time, providing for the needs of individual students. So far, we have explored ways in which we can deal with this by designing courses that enable large numbers of students to communicate with each other and with their tutors through technology. In carrying out learning activities your students will need to be able to source, store and manipulate learning materials, and, at the same time, to be able to discuss their ideas and receive feedback from you and/or from other students. Students are likely to integrate a mixture of resources: both formal (e.g. articles, notes) and informal 'work in progress' documents (e.g. notes, sketches, essays, reports).
Implementing these novel learning and teaching practices will require changes in institutional culture and organisation, particularly across Higher Education (for example towards sharing and reusing resources). Partnerships will have to be established involving students, educational developers, IT and audio-visual (AV) support staff and information specialists (such as subject librarians). Information specialists can provide support across both formal and informal collections of resources - offering curatorial advice on the management of informal, locally owned resources. Your students are likely to need support in developing the information literacy skills that will enable them to source, interact with and create new learning materials. They also need the flexibility to initiate discussions with tutors and peers using both electronic (mobile phone, email, chat rooms, texts, instant messaging) and face-to-face methods. Your role will also significantly change. You will probably spend time devising learning activities for your students, searching for and linking resources and offering feedback to students.
Transformational change in how we use Virtual Learning Environments to support effective learning is best achieved by involving a range of stakeholders and considering as wide a range of perspectives as possible. The risks and benefits of change can be viewed in terms of the wider benefits to your institution - in particular, how the use of the VLE can be improved at all three inter-related levels: e-administration, e-content delivery and e-Learning.
The problem is that the main barriers to e-learning innovation and effective deployment of VLEs across FE and HE are cultural and organisational. Changes in working practices can be difficult. Marris (1986) compares the changes in working practices from known ways of doing things to implementing on new strategies with a sense of bereavement. It is difficult to reach agreement on key strategic priorities in transforming working practices. This section identifies some of the barriers to implementing e-learning together with sugestions for overcoming these, explores the difficulties associated with changing working procedures, outlines a method for achieving transformational change and explores the relationships between risks and benefits of change.
