Interactive multimodal technology-mediated distance education courses: the academic's perspective

Abstract

Advances in educational technology and the continued emergence of the Internet as a major source of global information have encouraged educators to take advantage of this growing array of resources and move beyond traditional face-to-face and distance education correspondence modes toward a rich technology-mediated e-learning environment. Moreover, ready access to multimedia at the desk-top has provided an opportunity for educators to develop flexible, engaging and interactive learning resources, incorporating multimedia and hypermedia. This paper presents the findings of a study that investigated individual factors influencing academics’ adoption and integration of educational technology at an Australian university, for the purpose of developing interactive multimodal technology-mediated distance education courses. These distance education courses include a range of multimodal learning objects and multiple representations of content in order to cater for different learning styles and modal preferences, with the aims of providing a more inclusive curriculum that more closely reflects the on-campus learning experience and improved learning outcomes. Individual factors influencing academics’ development of these courses included pragmatic, opportunistic and personal motivations and concerns. Implications for distance education providers and individual marketing educators arising from these factors and subsequent recommendations are presented.