Learning and Teaching in the Online Era

In the online era our relationship with knowledge and information has been transformed, as has our capacity to communicate with each other. This has profound implications for university teaching. No longer is a student confined to learning from what is available on a specific university campus, in terms of lectures, seminars and library resources. Now a whole world of resources can be drawn down to the laptop, or mobile phone, of a student with the means and the know-how to access it. This offers particularly significant opportunities for non-traditional students, who can access education more flexibly and with relevant support instead of just making the best of a teaching service designed for others. And, correspondingly, it presents a plethora of new opportunities and challenges for teachers working with significantly more diverse student cohorts. In this chapter we explore various ways online learning can be used in university modules, the advantages and challenges it presents and some of its implications for teaching strategies. We also explore how online dialogue with students works and discuss how online working can be made easy and attractive to students, as well as the skills teachers need to develop to use online learning well.