Boost Blog

Last week, with the top trio Neil, Cam and Howard, I ran a session for colleagues across the ministry that shared our team’s work. We explored three questions:

1. What is e-learning (and what is not e-learning)?
2. Why is it important?
3. How does it fit in The New Zealand Curriculum?

We got asked some tough questions – questions that we should always be prepared to answer! So I’m going to devote a couple of posts to e-learning FAQs (don’t hesitate to offer up your own frequently asked questions or answers).

Q: e-Learning has nothing new to offer (other than the benefits of evolutionary change – more information, more connections etc).

A: There many justifications for e-learning. These include: young people are digital learners (their social, cultural and ethical practices are digital ones); the workplace and economy requires proficiency with ICT; e-learning can be a lever for teacher pedagogical change; ICT can be used to ‘add value’ (eg when teaching concepts difficult to grasp or to access to a wider range of learning resources and options). These reasons are necessary but not sufficient, to my mind.

The main justification, for me, is that e-learning supports the kinds of curriculum and pedagogies that respond to and shape 21st century society.

The NZ Curriculum says e-learning contributes new ways of teaching and learning (p36 e-Learning and pedagogy). e-Learning offers new approaches to teaching that overcome barriers of distance and time, expand learning beyond the classroom, and provide for more varied and richer learning. These are largely matters of scale and the amplification of effects: e-learning provides for wider and more flexible learning options by making learning quicker, bigger and more varied.

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