The Challenge of the NLII by Carole Barone W ith the realization that the 21st century brings with it a set of social issues related to education, the mission of higher education is expanding to provide access irrespective of life circumstances, e.g., age, employment status, geography, culture, ethnicity, family responsibilities. Access takes a number of forms, from physical access to the course material, via the Internet or a learning device, to intellectual access in a neutral, non-judgmental context. Faculty increasingly are turning to information technology to enable the development of a pedagogy that nurtures the learning process among this diverse student body, whether in a residential campus setting or distributed to off-campus sites.
Individuals have pedagogical preferences Like learning, teaching is highly individualized.
Background and frame of reference influence what a teacher or learner does with the teaching tools. Once over the steep and frustrating learning curve, faculty members mold the technology to suit their individual pedagogical preferences and styles. As a consequence, the spread of courseware developed by faculty on our campuses has been far from viral. Independent personalities who enjoy critical thinking gravitate to the professoriate. Had the fiscal resources of the higher education sector remained bountiful, and had the social issues associated with access, diversity, and educational currency not arisen, faculty could have continued, in the tradition of academic independence, to preserve the values associated with the traditional classroom lecture modality or to immerse themselves in the development of online courseware bearing their individual pedagogical signatures.