In recent years, Technology Enhanced Learning has become a catching phrase used by education institutions globally. Bodies like ACODE have been formed and have provided a framework for institutions to adopt as well as benchmarks to measures themselves against. Terms like Andragogy and Pedagogy form the cornerstone of course design using LMSs and other enhancing technologies. In recent weeks with Covid ramping up again, institutions are placing a lot of pressure on academics and students alike to adapt the way they teach and learn in both the physical space and online space, without much thought on what the academics and students need to master in terms of the tools they now need to use to successfully engage in education. These are tools we refer to as enabling educational tools.
In much the same way it took quite some time for academics to adjust from transparency and overhead projectors to Electronic slides and digital projectors, it will require the same if not more time to adjust to teaching online or in a hyflex mode with both students in the room and online. We know that covid did not do us any favours in preparing academics, but since then have still just been expecting our academics and students to know how these tools work? Supporting academics in the last few weeks to adjust to what we at ANU call Dual Delivery, has made it quite apparent that no amount pedagogy or andragogy is going to improve the learning and teaching experience when academics and students are struggling to understand and manage the technology used to deliver the teaching. So how can we support academics and students on tools for enabling?
