Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education           ISSN: 1759-667X 

Special Issue 22: Compendium of Innovative Practice                                     October 2021 

 

Editorial: Using technology to enhance online learning 

 

Cathy Malone 
Middlesex University London 
 

 

At the outset of the pandemic during the switch to emergency remote teaching there 

appeared to be a widespread misconception that the challenge facing the HE sector was 

primarily technological and the shift to online delivery simply required finding an 

appropriate digital translation of what was delivered face to face. The papers in this short 

section all explore uses of technology in a fine grained manner while refuting the simplistic 

technicist assumptions about learning, or that simple translation between modes of 

delivery is either desirable or possible. The authors here frame their challenges in terms of 

social learning: how do you measure and assess performance to an audience when all the 

theatres have closed? How do you maintain informal dialogic spaces for learning as a 

team or with your students when you can no longer meet? Posing questions which 

prioritise learning seems to have freed the authors here to be ambitious in addressing 

these challenges and galvanised teams to explore new technology to discover and create 

new online spaces through streaming and podcasting. 

 

There is a sense of course deconstruction and reconstruction in the papers throughout this 

section where authors strip courses down to core elements and drivers in order to examine 

how best they can be reconstituted online. This process elicited a detailed evaluation of 

features and affordances for various online programmes (including Zoom, Teams and 

Articulate Rise, and combinations of these). This process also re-engaged authors in 

pedagogical theory (Laurillard and social constructivism are repeatedly mentioned), where 

theory is used as a means of sense making in a volatile environment. 

 

It seems fitting to finish a section focusing on technology with a case study of a team 

working with dispersed groups of refugee learners facing significant digital poverty. There 

are a number of implications here regarding platform use, privacy and safety that will 

resonate with many tutors with a commitment to inclusive online delivery. Once again the 



Editorial 

Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education, Issue 22: Compendium                            October 2021 

authors demonstrate some considerable ingenuity in the adaptations they make to the 

challenges facing them. 

 

Perusing these papers, it is evident that the challenge of Covid was at the same time an 

opportunity that engaged the authors of these pieces in live collaborative learning with 

their peers, and what began as a technological challenge became a route to a richer space 

for learning for staff and students alike. 

 

 

References: 

 

Hodges, C., Moore, S., Lockee, B., Trust, T., and Bond A. (2020) ‘The difference between 

emergency remote teaching and online learning’, Educause Review. Available at: 

https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/the-difference-between-emergency-remote-

teaching-and-online-learning (Accessed: 22 October 2021). 

  

https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/the-difference-between-emergency-remote-teaching-and-online-learning
https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/the-difference-between-emergency-remote-teaching-and-online-learning