Future Present

With a view to the e-learning module of my MA programme next year, I have been gradually edging my way into the fast and frenzied parallel universe of technology-enabled learning. Much as I love certain aspects of technology, I have never been quite so painfully aware of what an old-fashioned milkmaid of a girl a really am. The more I commit myself to the inevitability of e-learning in the global classroom of the near future, the more apparent it is that I have a great deal to learn.

This week, Oman’s Sultan Qaboos University is hosting the “Moodle Majlis”, the first event in the region dedicated to the Moodle Open Source e-learning software. My adamant insistence on attending this event has set me on a steep learning curve over the past weeks, and the rarefied air of this future vision is dizzying. Today, in the first heady sessions, some staggering ideas surfaced. The implications for the educator are profound.

And yet, e-learning is still a pipe dream in my college, as in so many other educational environments. The question for us will be, what can we learn from e-learning that will benefit our students now; how do we prepare our students for lifelong, autonomous trad- and e-learning; and how do we begin to educate our educators in this brave new literacy for a sometimes daunting new world?