Lesson 3 - Implementing Online Learning

There have been many references in this book to the need for teachers and instructors to work, wherever possible, with instructional designers and media producers when teaching in a digital age. The reasons for this are fairly obvious:

• No teacher can be an expert on everything; working in a team covers a wider a range of skills and knowledge;
• Technology should be used to decrease instructor and faculty workload, not to increase it, as at present; instructional designers, in particular, should be able to help teachers and faculty to manage their workload while still producing high quality teaching; media producers enable subject experts to focus on content and skills development;
• Team teaching, with different skills within the team (two or more subject experts, instructional designer, media producer) will lead to higher-quality teaching.

As a result, over the last ten to twenty years, there has been a rapid expansion in the number of learning technology support systems, both centrally, and in larger institutions, within different academic departments. Over time, separate units focusing on faculty development, learning technology support, and distance education have become merged or integrated into multi-functional units, under a variety of names, although legacy systems can sometimes take a long while to make this shift.