I do take Terry’s point that we can’t ignore new technology – I just worry that we might sometimes lose sight of our students’ needs in a fog of technological exuberance.

For example my own UKOU is putting £millions into its VLE, developing blogs and wickis and podcasts etc., and yet the evidence that these will really enhance students’ learning or that they have the will (and time!) to use them does not yet exist. It’s ‘C’ for ‘costs – we have limited resources to support our students and need to choose where we put those resources carefully. The evidence is that what works for student success is making proactive personal motivational contact with them – often using that older technology, the phone. Putting so much resource into IT may mean that we don’t do that, thereby failing our students (ethically and academically).

In David Noble’s words “E-learning may be a technological tapeworm in the guts of higher education” so we need to proceed carefully down this road. Evidence! Evidence!
Ormond