Lemmens The Virtual Challenge to International Cooperation in Higher Education Bernd Wächter (ed.) Aca papers on International Cooperation in Education The V irtual Challenge to International Cooperation in Higher Education

The potential of ICT in enhancing learning and improving teaching
In terms of learning contexts and motivation, technology has a tremendous
capacity to increase student learning and student interest in learning. Re-
search shows that student understanding and retention improves when stu-
dents learn by experience. Technology can engage students in active learn-
ing with realistic, practical problems that connect learning and real life.
4 
Tech-
nologies such as collaboration environments, modelling, simulations and vir-
tual reality interfaces can help students experience the skill being taught.
Easy, rapid access to vast amounts of information encourages students to
search, explore and combine information. Technology also offers students
the opportunity to return, at their own convenience, to material previously
covered.
4
Technology can be a driving force for pedagogical and structural change in
higher education. The roles of academic staff are changing as the latter are
forced to shift from the role of information provider/broadcaster and producer
(thanks to their research activities) to that of learning facilitator and tutor.
Teachers’ activities are shifting towards teaching design, giving new structure
to multiform and complex pieces of knowledge, drawing up the blueprint for
knowledge acquisition and even designing education tools and media. Their
role as facilitator and tutor requires new cooperative qualities and a team
approach in relation both to their peers and to their students, in contrast to
the traditional individual ethic of higher education.
The learner takes charge of his/her learning, i.e. there will be a natural shift
from passive, reproductive learning to active learning for practical purposes.
83
4
Frank Newman & Jamie Scurry (2001), 
Higher Education in the Digital Rapids. The Futures Project.
www.futuresproject.org

---

Learning can be customised to individual needs (pace, learning style). There
will be a move from a teacher-centred mode to a student-centred one. Virtual
education can be the driving force in moving towards interactive learning as
a pedagogical paradigm.