Abstract

There is immense pressure for post-secondary institutions in Canada, and the rest of the world, to balance revenue with costs and to start competing in the global education market. In pursuit of this goal several issues arise. First, technology is advancing rapidly and several attempts at e-learning (online learning / distance education) have shown combinations of success and failure. The focus has been primarily on how to make technology work for education, when it should be asking how is education best enhanced through technology. When moving learning to a completely online model, you do not have the choice of choosing from traditional on-site techniques; you move the entire course over. This doesn’t make sound pedagogical sense, and we’ve seen other models challenge this by using a mixed model or choosing the right courses that are best facilitated in an online environment. Herein we explore this shift in course provision via current research, which has studied the many inherent tensions.