Abstract:

E-learning is not new in higher education. It has been used for quite some years. However, it could be argued that on the whole it is only being used as a supplement to on-campus teaching. Most higher education teachers actually use this technology, but it is our view that most are just using the online learning management systems (e-platform) as a repository for resources and beyond that they are not carefully choosing the technological tools from a pedagogical perspective.

This paper argues that it is not effective to simply adopt the pedagogies that have been used traditionally for on-campus students; and that much more thought needs to be given to designing the environment of the e-platform to support our pedagogical goals e.g., to facilitate interaction and ultimate achieve student learning.

This paper will discuss what we believe are appropriate pedagogical bases in terms of educational theories for online learning; and discuss the concepts of ‘place’ and ‘presence’ as examples of the kind of thinking that should be employed when designing the learning environment.

Keywords:

e-learning, pedagogy, online, place, presence.