The integration of digital technologies into learning and teaching is increasingly viewed as a valuable means to enrich the experiences of learners, complementing traditional methodologies and opening new opportunities for student engagement. No one tool will address all the learning and teaching needs of faculties and learners across the diverse contexts in which UNSW operates. Therefore it is vital to offer and support a suite of options that academics and students can draw on to maximise learning outcomes.
UNSW currently offers a range of L&T tools and software applications for use by staff and students. Technologies such as Lectopia, Wimba and MapleTA have been used across Faculties both jointly with a learning management system such as WebCT or Moodle, or as independent applications. Until now, however, these have lacked an integrated, centrally supported and managed approach.
In addition to enterprise-based applications, the emergence of Web 2.0 or the ‘read-write-web’ has impacted on learning and teaching in higher education. Teachers and students increasingly connect with a global community, via free or low cost, easy to use tools and applications that support flexibility, collaboration, and content generation sharing and adaptation. While many of these technologies exist on the open web (known as ‘cloud-based’ applications), many whether hosted and supported externally, or on UNSW infrastructure, have the potential to be designed and structured to address UNSW strategic directions and needs.
While the new UNSW Learning Management System, BlackBoard9, offers a range of inbuilt applications and functionality these are often limited in scope/ functionality or duplicate tools on the open web that enable broader level collaboration and engagement. It is also recognised that many staff will seek to engage with individual L&T technologies independent of the LMS, and therefore need to be available for access either via the application itself, a UNSW portal or the LMS.
