BRAVE NEW WORLD, VIRTUALLY

There is something of the scent of danger about my study session tonight. Where I am usually cozily surrounded by my fortress of chunky books and printed-out articles when I sit down to study, tonight my desk is bare except for my laptop.

Stripped of my reams of stationery I feel cold and lost and bare and afraid. Even though I am no luddite, learning this way is an unaccustomed adrenaline-throbbing terror of a thrill. The endless abyss of options gapes at me: while unit notes are sensibly sitting on my screen, they open up into a myriad of fractal possibilities: hyperlinks scattering off into an unseen horizon, mp3s on classes (and every other imaginable soundtrack) thronging for my attention along with the rest of the wondrous wilful wilds of the web.

This is a whole new mode of learning, and it may very well be true that a new generation of ‘digital natives’ will feel extremely comfortable in it. I am not- and educators from previous generations probably feel even more intimidated than I do.

But if learning is to reach new generations, it will have to be in a medium they understand. And interactive e-learning certainly speaks their language.

The only question is… do I?

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?