Introduction by Gilly Salmon to Part 4 of Littlejohn, A. (2003) Reusing Online Resources: Strategic Perspectives

Abstract

Abstract: At first glance it seems that understanding and implementing the new technologies are our major challenges, but if you've read so far in this book, you'll know they're merely the tip of a huge great iceberg! Instead we see that digitalized learning resources could be a way for harnessing technology in the service of our educational objectives... So, how can we reduce costs, increase student numbers, work harder and smarter and yet provide learners with highly customized and personalized learning, without becoming another e-casualty? If those are the questions, reusability, in all its glory, looks like an answer to me. Why, can we not 'just do it'? Perhaps because everyone who works in today's demanding educational environments knows that our organizations function and change through the millions of thoughts and actions of individual people. It's reach-out not RAM that's the issue! There a number of key issues that distinguish changing teaching and learning practice: First, we are professionals and have strong tendencies towards independence and autonomy. We're used to taking responsibility for ourselves and view imposed 'solutions' with much suspicion. However Rachel Harris and Carol Higgison's e-workshop chapter, 'Reuse of resources within communities of practice' provides a wonderful example of how staff can be engaged in exploring new ways of working. Second, we are fully immersed in our own disciplines. Through perhaps many years of studying and teaching, the traditions of the 'way we do things' are embedded deep into our practice. Disciplines strongly influence our professional identities and what information and knowledge we consider important... We give up our content and method-led approaches most reluctantly since they feel like a blow to the centre of our hearts! So, how do we progress and use digital opportunities happily and successfully? There simply is not just one way. Carmel McNaught's chapter, 'Identifying the complexity of factors in the sharing and reuse of resources' offers us a series of models. No, not of instructional design, but of organizational change. We're invited to explore polarity theory, scholarship principles, integrated, parallel and distributed approaches... This part of the book suggests that new forms of communities of practice in teaching provide us with the [solution]. Notes: Reprinted with permission from: Reusing Online Resources: A Sustainable Approach to eLearning , (Ed.) Allison Littlejohn. Kogan Page, London. ISBN 0749439491. Editor: Allison Littlejohn.