Breaking BAD to bridge the reality/rhetoric chasm

Abstract

The reality of using digital technologies to enhance learning and teaching has a history of falling short of the rhetoric. Past attempts at bridging this chasm have tried: increasing the perceived value of teaching; improving the pedagogical and technological knowledge of academics; redesigning organisational policies, processes and support structures; and, designing and deploying better pedagogical techniques and technologies. Few appear to have had any significant, widespread impact, perhaps because of the limitations of the (often implicit) theoretical foundations of the institutional implementation of e-learning. Using a design-based research approach, this paper develops an alternate theoretical framework (the BAD framework) for institutional e-learning and uses that framework to analyse the development, evolution, and very different applications of the Moodle Activity Viewer (MAV) at two separate universities. Based on this experience it is argued that the reality/rhetoric chasm is more likely to be bridged by interweaving the BAD framework into existing practice.