Flexibility and technology-enhanced learning and teaching: The rhetoric and reality

Abstract

According to the rhetoric, flexibility is one of the key benefits of online learning and teaching in higher education. In this paper we identify a set of dimensions of flexibility and demonstrate that the reality of much current technology-enhanced learning and teaching is, in fact, no more flexible than the early distance education model and in some respects is less flexible. We suggest that we are on the cusp of a radical transformation of online education. However, there are constraints in terms of students' lack of strategies to manage their learning environments and a lack of research into pedagogically sound models for the delivery of truly flexible, personalised learning and teaching.