A review of pedagogical support for online learning in the 21^st century “please state the nature of the educational emergency!”

This paper seeks to critically review online learning support in the 21st Century from a practitioner’s perspective. The paper is a review of 25 years of experience tutoring on distance learning courses with the Open University in the United Kingdom during which time there has been a considerable change in the use of technology to support learning. The Open University is now in competition with many Higher Education Institutions in the UK who seek to have a more significant digital footprint in the provision of Higher Education. However the role of the Pedagogue in the delivery of this learning is often unclear. The fundamental question that needs to be addressed is “Has technology enhanced the interaction between Tutor and Students and is the Tutor role still important?” This paper will argue that the live Pedagogue is more valuable than ever but that the role of the Tutor in supporting the 21st Century Learner now requires the Tutor to be much more pro-active in the use of technology. The need to be proactive is a result of the availability of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT). This distance learning approach has moved away from the idea that “Subject 101” is on a Thursday afternoon from 1pm to 3pm in Semester A and embraces the idea of “Learn what you want when you want” but still achieve the same end goal in terms of skills development and critical thinking. The learn “What you want when you want” is at the heart of the distance learning mantra and this paper will discuss the role that Technology has played in supporting this approach in the delivery of Higher Education at a distance. The paper will conclude by considering what the future may hold for distance learning approaches and will speculate as to whether the future involves some form of personal support system that students call up when they need some form of help. The speculation revolves around the idea of an expert system fronted by a holographic projection of a Pedagogue with whom the student will interact. This type of approach may fit better with the asynchronous behaviour that students show in the way they utilise some of the ICT technology available today.