Information and digital literacy in education via the digital path

A week or so after Nick’s post I was discussing with my Onlignment colleagues about what we should call the field in which we work and Barry Sampson was quite clear that he didn’t like the term ‘online learning’. Why not? Because, for him, it implies a course, whereas ‘learning online’ is more about what learners do for themselves. Nick and Barry were both looking to distinguish push from pull, formal from informal, but had very different perceptions about what these terms mean.

So what does that prove? Well, firstly, that terminology is a quagmire. There simply isn’t a term that doesn’t carry some baggage for some people.