Does teaching off-the-shelf promote McLearning?

Once adopted, the affordances and constraints (Ryder & Wilson, 1996) built into off-the-shelf products or processes often shape what happens for the student and the teacher. Things the product or process make easy to do are likely to get done, like multiple choice tests in a managed learning environment. Things that are harder to do are less likely to be completed even if educationally sound. Innovation for the teacher is still possible but within the restrictions imposed. Teachers using such products to develop a web course come to know what to expect, and what not to expect, from them. So do the students.

When considering the impact of technology on flexible delivery the University of Colorado Department of Mathematics reported:

While parts of such a program can be viewed as improved pedagogy, the absence of traditional human interaction leads some faculty to view it as unacceptable McLearning. (Abrams & Haefner, 1999)

Steve Gilbert (1998) comments:

I see a rising tension between those who hope technology will permit greater standardization in the content and quality of college courses and those who hope technology will support greater personalization of teaching and learning.

Perhaps those ready-made off-the-shelf products and processes that afford "traditional human interaction" and "personalization of teaching and learning" are less likely to constrain the learner to "McLearning".

• Abrams, G., & Haefner, J. (1998). S.H.O.W.M.E.: Spear-Heading Online Work in Mathematics Education. T.H.E. Journal. [World Wide Web Document]. Available: http://www.thejournal.com/magazine/vault/A2029.cfm
• Gilbert, S. W. (1998). AAHESGIT117: Acad. Freedom vs. Tech. Support (cont.), [E-mail]. Available: http://www.cren.net/ftp/archives/aahesgit/
• Ryder, M., & Wilson, B. (1996). Affordances and constraints of the Internet for learning and instruction. Paper presented to a joint session of the Association for Educational Communications Technology, Indianapolis, Indiana. [World Wide Web Document]. Available: http://carbon.cudenver.edu/~mryder/aect_96.html