Informing my TEL practice

During my job interview for my new TEL position I was asked a very pertinent question. "What would you say has been the most important aspect of your professional development?" It got me thinking.

I'm not a techie by background. In my early days of practice I authored several CD-ROMs using HTML, and edited and assembled somewhat simple HTML pages into websites. I also designed and project managed some educational Flash-based animation and simulation developments, and chaired and supervised the development of Mahara. Administering a Moodle area for a large private training establishment in New Zealand helped my technical perspective, but I'm not a programmer. I use online tools, I don't develop them.

My answer to the question was this. For me, technology enhanced learning didn't come into being twenty years ago devoid of any theoretical foundations. The most important aspect of my professional development is my grounding in distance education theory and practice. Online learning, in my view, is a natural extension of classic distance education (unless it's blended, hybrid or flipped; see also the work of Sarah Guri-Rosenblit - I'm not trying to equate online education with distance education). Effective online education reflects the theories and practice of the best distance educators.

That's not to say classic DE literature or experience contains all of the answers. We clearly need to look forward. However we shouldn't make the fundamental mistake that everything pre-internet is no longer relevant. Concepts of guided didactic conversation, industrialisation and transactional distance, to name but three classic DE ideas, are as relevant today as they were when first described.

If you're interested in deepening your perspective of TEL and its capability I recommend considering the DE classics!

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