The Limits of ‘Blackboard’ are the Limits of My World: On the Changing Concepts of the University and its Students

Abstract

This article focuses on the changing concepts of the university student and teacher, of learning and teaching, and of the university as such because of the use and integration of electronic learning environments. This mode of digital learning implies important changes in established practices in which students and teachers inevitably take part. Hitherto familiar practices are at stake. The way we understand these changing practices suggests that the implementation of the digital learning environment encompasses more than just a mere instrumental change in the processes of teaching and learning. What at first sight only seems to be a simple material intervention puts a number of familiar concepts and noble intentions under stress. Without wanting to decline the use of information and communications technology in higher education, the authors argue that it is far from self-evident to accept an electronic learning environment as effectively supporting a student's self-tuition, or as stimulating learning as a critical and sustained activity.