Testing Times
by Philip Butler
On Friday, I attended an excellent event organised by JISC RSC London: Testing times: the future role of e-learning in Higher Education 26th Feb
testing times?
2010.
The event coincided with a post on the UK Champ list asking for examples of ‘cashable efficiencies’ which sparked a host of indignant replies smugly expounding e-Learning ideology (’this isn’t about cost-cutting or replacing staff, etc.) Of course, I’m not against these sentiments but it does rather miss the point.
The Harnessing Technology Review November 2009 which was released earlier this month (see RSC London blog) is an excellent document and a manifesto for the personalisation of learning (quality driven and raising standards in teaching and learning, etc.). The paragraph that has caused the excitement asks whether e-mature organisations are not only more effective but if they can also bring in new efficiencies.
At Moodle Wonderland a college told of one impact that had resulted from the ‘new way of doing things’ was seeing a department’s annual photocopying bill fall from an annual cost of £16K to £600. College leadership need to know about these examples:
“where there is a good degree of technological maturity, that opportunities are being missed to reduce energy and printing costs, save on space, reduce administrative overheads and realise efficiencies in delivering learning.”
Sadly, there are still plenty of examples of college leadership who haven’t a clue what personalisation of learning is about (or indeed e-Learning) and wouldn’t dream of investing £16K in a VLE or anything else that didn’t bring them ‘cashable efficiencies’. It’s worth having these to hand. Remember that it is these very same leaders who, faced with financial squeeze, will see axing the e-Learning staff as an attractive cost saving! What all of us need is not empty ideology but pragmatic examples.