Developing e-learning experiences and practices: the importance of context

Abstract

This is my last editorial before I step down from the ALT-J editorial team. Rhona Sharpe and Frances Bell, will form the new ALT-J editorial team and I wish them the best of luck in developing the direction of ALT-J in the future. I would also like to thank the rest of outgoing editorial team, the ALT-J editorial board, the reviewers and authors that I have worked with over the last six issues of ALT-J, who each in their way has contributed to furthering our knowledge and understanding of the relationship between technology and learning.Before I step down as editor it seems appropriate for me to look back on the field of e-learning and reflect on the progress and developments that have been made in the time since I took up the post of ALT-J editor back in 2001. The last time I undertook such a reflective exercise was in 2003, when I edited a book that aimed to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the Association for Learning Technology through a review of the impact of learning technology on tertiary education. Interestingly, three of the contributors to that review are authors of papers in this issue (Boyle, Deepwell and Oliver). I introduced the review by arguing that the years 1993-2003 had not been particularly characterized by revolutionary or dramatic developments and that the future would be characterized by gradual rather than radical change (Seale 2003). It might be interesting, therefore, to consider whether the articles in this issue of ALT-J are reporting radical or dramatic developments in e-learning policy, research or practice.In this issue we have four articles. Deepwell and Malik present a case study of learner experiences and explore three emerging aspects of the learning experience: student expectations of the technology, lecturers engagement with technology and how technology might support processes of transition in higher education. San Diego et al. describe the development of a prototype for a pedagogy planning tool that can scaffold the process of learning design for teachers and lecturers. Wong, Shephard and Phillips apply the cathedral and bazaar analogy to the development of repositories, while Wali, Winters and Oliver use activity theory to develop theorized conceptions of mobile learning.Is there anything radical or new in these papers? In one sense no there isn't. There have been numerous studies over the years that have reported learner responses and satisfaction regarding the use of learning technologies (see, for example, Slaouti 2001). Readers of ALT-J would also be able to trace the origins of learning design back to articles that discussed instructional systems such as REAL (Grabinger and Dunlap 1995). The growth of learning object research in the early part of this millennium went hand in hand with the development of repositories (see, for example, Currier et al. 2004; Lukusiak et al. 2005) and activity theory has already been used as a tool to conceptualize particular aspects of e-learning (see, for example, Waycott 2002).So, what do the articles in this issue offer us which a...