Back to the future: the power of traditional teaching with modern communication

Abstract

The use of information and communication technologies in the delivery of higher education is heavily influenced by academic researchers in the fields of e-learning and education. The primary interest of such academics is naturally more focused on research and practice in the use of more advanced and emerging tools and techniques, rather than in the growth of their own institutions. Could such a preference be an inhibiting factor in the development of online courses in higher educational institutions? In moving their teaching online, academics are often faced with the dual challenge of changing the medium of teaching as well as adopting more sophisticated technologies and pedagogical practices than those they have previously used. In addition to this, institutions are challenged by development and quality assurance procedures for online delivery that are often more stringent than those in use with campus based delivery. Could it be that the combination of these challenges is resulting in many departments being slow to develop online courses or in not considering online delivery as an option at all? Might this be different if institutions were to replicate online, the methods used for teaching campus-based courses? Institute of Technology Sligo, Sligo, Ireland. This paper presents a case study on the success of a department in Institute of Technology Sligo in rapidly developing a suite of online distance learning programmes (www.itsligo.ie/online), with a very low level of investment. Using synchronous and asynchronous communications technologies to enable mainly traditional teaching methods over the Internet, this small department, with no previous experience of distance learning, between 2002 and 2008, grew the number of online distance learners to 400, greater than the number of full-time campus based students, and income from fees to over €1.5m The paper also puts forward the hypothesis that adopting a strategy of transferring traditional teaching practices online, may be more effective in scaling up the availability of online learning programmes than other strategies that require the use of more sophisticated pedagogical or technological approaches. It also suggests that the interests and preferences of e-learning and educational researchers may actually work against the simpler business objective of increasing capacity in online delivery.