Why offline? It’s very personal

Student in Bedroom

Desire to protect status and student contact fuels resistance to e-learning. Rebecca Attwood writes.

Academics are resistant to e-learning because they feel it threatens their identity as tutors and because they want to protect face-to-face teaching relationships, a study has found.

Janet Hanson, head of education enhancement at Bournemouth University, conducted a group interview with nine academics and in-depth individual interviews with a further five at a university in the south of England.

She found that when academics saw that their students’ technological expertise exceeded their own, their identities as “expert knowledge providers” was undermined.

In such cases, academics perceive a shift in the balance of power between themselves and their students, Dr Hanson writes, losing their role as the “gatekeepers” of knowledge.”

Read entire article from Times Higher Education.

About drbexl
Dr Bex Lewis. @drbexl / @digitalfprint on Twitter: Life Explorer, Polymath, academia/ learning, Christian, cultural history, WW2 posters: Keep Calm & Carry On, digital world, coach, ENFP, @ww2poster @bigbible.

  • http://www.socksforhappypeople.com/blog Tom

    Wow! Loving her groovy socks!

    Great choice of pic, Bex!

  • http://www.bex-lewis.co.uk drbexl

    Well, you know Tom, very much thinking about socks these days… not sure why, must be your great idea for a company – looking forward to the official launch! :-)