You need hardly any training to use this - and you forget the technology in pursuit of your teaching goals. Specifically they have offered over 500 students web-based tools for teaching and project work, with the huge added advantage of being able to network freely to tutors and each other in what Mike Sharples describes as a 'conversational model' of learning. Rather, it is to give them a menu of options that they can draw on according to their situation and preferences. Technology, properly used, can make any of these and any combination of these a reality. But technology of itself does not create vibrantly useful teaching packages.
Human beings do.
Professional production standards for multimedia, web-based learning are essential. Lecturers will have to think hard about the design of their courses. There are already an awful lot of dreadfully bad so-called teaching packages out there, and we don't want to add to them. Looking further into the future, though, Mike Sharples paints an even more enticing picture. It is one that has appeal for all Birmingham alumni of whatever age and background, not just those currently entering the university system.