An Online Postgraduate Subject in Information Technology for University Teachers

SUMMARY

The Professional Development Centre, University of New South Wales has offered a successful postgraduate programme in Higher Education for university academics in Australia since 1991. After developing independent study packages in print, video and audio in most subjects to enable wider access to the course through flexible delivery, the Centre has recently looked to the Internet as a medium to support learning in our programme. In doing so, we sought to use the interactive potential of the medium, while maintaining the pedagogical principles of student‐centred learning and reflective practice established elsewhere in our programme.

This paper presents an evaluation of one subject (Information Technology for Teaching and Learning) which is taught entirely online, and uses public domain browsers, e‐mail and file transfer, integrated with software that we have developed (WebTeach®), to facilitate a range of teacher‐learner and learner‐learner interactions necessary for a deep approach to learning. Our students are practising university academics who wish to obtain formal qualifications in teaching and learning and who, because of their professional commitments, are mostly unable to attend on‐campus lectures and seminars. This report draws on data collected through archived transcripts of the online interactions that occurred during the conduct of the subject, students’ reflective journals, an independent learning report conducted by a student in another subject, and the teachers’ own reflections on the entire process.