Flexible Learning at the Crossroads: Are our teachers ready?

This paper reflects on managing technological change in teaching and learning, with particular emphasis on staff development. It draws on two national reports in Australia. One report team interviewed senior management in 50% of Australian universities (Wills and Yetton, 1997). The other reviewed 104 nationally funded IT based teaching projects (Alexander et al, 1998). Both make recommendations that have implications for staff development. A number of staff development case studies are described, most practising what they preach by adopting flexible learning techniques in order to teach teachers by example about flexible learning: Project LEAD, Teaching at a Distance, Flexible Delivery web site and videotape, Multimedia Pathways, First Fleet OnLine, NCODE Flexible Learning web site and online workshops, Teleteaching 96, Interactive Proceedings 94. A more extensive version of this paper is published in Wills and Alexander (1999).