The promise of computer-based learning: designing for inclusivity

Computer based models of teaching and learning are receiving renewed attention in the post-secondary sector. In the province of Alberta, Canada, over $40000000 (Canadian) has been made available to the adult learning system under the Learning Enhancement Envelope (LEE) funding initiative, for alternative models of instruction and learner support. Technology will allow us to reach new learners, in new learning contexts, and potentially in new ways. Yet the new technologies in education may exacerbate the marginalization of some students if we do not attend to learning styles, learning designs, and access issues that are entangled with gender inequality. Technology and technology based models of teaching and learning, are not value-neutral; and neither are the vocabulary and prevailing metaphors which can exclude women or include them in undesirable ways. How can women negotiate and transform a world of instructional technology that is, in effect, premised on their absence? Can new learning technologies and new learning designs support new teaching and learning opportunities? The author thinks they can, and in ways that creatively promote inclusivity through representation and design, by: 1) allowing for alternative representations to support diverse learning styles; 2) including large databases of resources, inviting the inclusion of experiences of women and other marginalized groups, and supporting the interrelatedness of perspectives; 3) supporting relational ways of knowing and being in the world; 4) inviting the instructional designer to step outside linear, objectivist, traditional models of instruction to create environments reflecting knowledge that is both intuitive and rational