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The Use of Technology and eLearning among Academic Staff: a case study

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Kaye, Lorraine (2007) The Use of Technology and eLearning among Academic Staff: a case study. Investigations in university teaching and learning, 4 (2). pp. 132-139. ISSN 1740-5106

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Abstract

This study was undertaken in the light of the development of a Learning and Teaching Strategy in the Department of Education at London Metropolitan University, which identified the use of technology and e-learning as an area for development. Members of staff felt that they were very much at different points towards embedding aspects of technology-mediated learning into their practice. This reflects the findings in the National Committee of Inquiry into Higher Education (Dearing) Report, almost a decade ago, which highlighted the gap between potential use and use in practice relating to instructors’ and learners’ responses to the use of technology in learning-related situations. Furthermore, as Collis and Moonen (2001) point out:

‘Despite all the possibilities for increased flexibility and the institution’s perception that you can’t not do it, the actual voluntary use of technology applications as a purposeful part of the instructional delivery of a course or related to a classroom lesson is still far from widespread.’ (Collis and Moonen, 2001)

There have been a number of studies which have explored the factors that influence an instructor’s decision to make use of a technology application in his or her pedagogical practice. One such model is the 4-E Model (Collis, Peters and Pals, 1999) which proposes that an individual’s likelihood of voluntarily making use of a particular type of technology for a learning-related purpose is a function of the 4 E’s: the environmental context, the individual’s perception of educational effectiveness, ease of use and sense of personal engagement with the technology, the latter two being of most importance. This is highlighted in a response in this study that ‘it only takes an unsuccessful experience with ICT for staff to elect for safer resource use and end up being less ambitious in their teaching as a result’.

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