Selected readings

Prendergast, G. (2004). Blended collaborative learning: Online teaching of online educators. GlobalEducator 2005 (April). Retrieved March, 14, 2005, from http://www.globaled.com/articles/GerardPrendergast2004.pdf.

There has been too little recognition that educators need professional development in order to maximise their effectiveness when working with various forms of online delivery. Decision makers need to understand the fundamental differences in teaching approach, if they are to implement online training successfully. Otherwise they risk implementing a 'content high' system that does not engage and retain students and will, in the short term, make their organisations uncompetitive in the global educational market.

Waterhouse, S. & R. Rogers (2004). The importance of policies in e-learning instruction. Educause Quarterly 27(3). Retrieved March, 14, 2005, from http://www.educause.edu/pub/eq/eqm04/eqm0433.asp.

...On a typical course site, an instructor posts announcements, a course syllabus, class notes and presentations, and related learning materials for easy access by students. In addition, some instructors use the course site to facilitate forums and chats, to receive and return student assignments, to administer online quizzes and tests, and to maintain an online gradebook. However, how many instructors have thoroughly considered the importance of posting policy documents on a course Web site? [emphasis added] Our experience as teachers and e-learning mentors reveals that this important component of a course site is frequently underdeveloped or even missing entirely.

In the last decade, ... concerns about faculty members' ability to teach today's students and advances in the cognitive sciences have led to a new interest in learning. We have stopped assuming that learning is the automatic, inevitable outcome of teaching [emphasis added]. Certainly, good teaching and learning are related. However, when we ... start with learning, connecting what is known about how people learn to instructional practice, we come at teaching and its improvement from a very different direction.