Introduction
As part of the project to find a way of evaluating the contribution of learning technologies was to describe what precisely learning technologies and e-learning has to offer. There has to be some way of describing the contribution they can make that whilst not claiming to be unique is at least in the realms of it not having happened at the pace and could not have been imagined as occurring without learning technologies. In the past these differences were summed up in terms of the quantum of equipment, in the belief that whilst the effect was unknown, it must at least have the benefit of time saving. More recently, tools such as Generator were more systems based, enquiring by checklist what procedures were occurring. In the age of the Web2.0 generation, we believe it now needs to be described in terms of the behaviour it evokes in both learners, teaching staff and the wider college, such that its benefit is described in terms of the experience for learners generally and their experience of learning specifically. The same behavioural approach is true for how we might evaluate the effect on staff and the wider community providers support. 

What learning Technology brings to the educational table
Rather than starting by thinking about what technology software should be used, it is better to describe instead the behaviour or experience of learners and then find the technology and application to make it fit. In many cases it is how we work with technology rather than the specific properties of technology that are important. In many cases learners will both directly and indirectly help with this.
This quality of the experience can be evaluated both as the learner experience (relating to being part of a learning community) and the learning experience (relating to the course of study). It is these two experiences that are shared with others that affects the reputation of the college specifically and generally, and helps create competition for places on courses: E-learning should should be seen as something that is marketable in the broadest sense.

There are 10 particular contributions, 1 of which relates to everyone’s behaviour,3 relate to learner behaviour, 2 relate to the effect of effective leadership and management, 1 each for teaching staff, the reach of technology, the dialogue with its community and a final one looks at technology as a system that catches those with problems to their progress. They are: Digital Literacy, Personalisation. Divergent thinking, Collaborative learning, The Learner Voice, Pace and Progression, Staff Confidence, Beyond the Classroom, Vision and Reputation.

This is the language of e-learning, where it makes it’s impactful contributions that ultimately end up as the stories added to the college SARs.

The 10 Behaviours

In Teaching, Learning and Assessment:

1. Digital Literacy. 
Technology in action in college does more than support learning. The wider world is dominated by technology and the uses made of it. Learners need to leave with the ability to operate successfully in this digital world and they need to use technology to the same standard (and normality) in their college life. Good colleges work in this same digitally literate culture, by bringing what is known and done in everyday life into learning. This normalisation is called Digital Literacy, defined by JISC (2012) as:

‘those capabilities which fit an individual for living, learning and working in a digital society’

Providers need to acknowledge this as a way of working as a learning community as well as equip those amongst its staff and learners to work effectively in it. Using technology should be seen as a normal way of proceeding such that it is not really noticed.

A Design Science
the application and practice by teachers of e-learning can is also a design science,2 sensitive to research and improvement by enquiry and exploration and not just open to inspiration and enthusiasm. There is value in sharing and learning from research on ‘what works’. Improving colleges make use of this applied method of development through the development of teaching staff at the same time as looking to them to innovate as a contribution to that design. Understanding that digital literacy is the cultural framework in which we practice and share technique is the critical starting point.

2. Personalisation
In the last few years, software has moved from being ‘technology of the many’ (one piece of software held centrally, everyone has an account) to ‘technology for the ‘one’. Each student now has a cluster of software based on the individual and each is customised to perform a particular task. This focus on individual progression allows greater negotiation or even self-management of pace, direction, context, assessment and self management of learning. It will have a direct effect on the context, authenticity and pleasure of learning, tailored to the learner’s circumstances. Personalisation meets the requirement of supporting equality and diversity for every learner.

3. Collaborative learning
Technology allows far greater collaboration between students and tutors. Students can work together constantly in an ongoing collaborative journey of learning no longer wholly reliant on critical class time meetings. Technology allows collaborators to show their contributions and develop understanding based on a personalised context. It can be used in supporting mentoring, critical friendship and assessment and the profundity of learning

4. Divergent thinking; 
An offshoot of personalisation and collaboration, learners can shape their own understanding and customised technology ‘for the one’ allows it’s capture it with the arguments written into unique learning stories. Differing methods of assessment allows these learning insights to be fairly assessed. Divergent thinking encourages creativity, and the use of the imagination in learning. It nurtures the development of authentic, contextualised learning and higher level thinking encouraged through the capture of unique learning journeys.

5. The Learner Voice
How the understanding of student experiences of college life are discussed, debated and shared with teaching staff and managers, through the use of ‘The learner Voice’, using social and collaborative media (moderated by college as well as others), as well as through technology used for surveys and in tutorials. However, technology allows this to become not simply an information gathering exercise but a genuine dialogue that never closes, using different platforms, including social media, following some that are ‘owned’ by others with greater or lesser degrees of formality. The voice can include prospective learners, local community interest groups, employers, authors and experts in academic fields. 

6.Tutor Confidence
Technology development happens at a fierce pace. E-learning policies have a life of no more than 18 months because of this pace of change. None of this development is led by educationalists and they, along with most other professions have to sift through possibility to see what can be embank to good effect in education. Teaching staff have to blend new general technologies (some generally built for education) and behaviours and apply them to sound principles of effective teaching and learning. The pace of change makes this a constant and new ability teachers require to do it successfully. That is why research in FE recently has shown that teachers who are successful in their use of learning technologies and who have a curious outlook have the most success in its assimilation rather than the traditional view that training in process is required. In short, a confident teacher is more successful in this process than a trained teacher, who are able to demonstrate creativity, vision, willingness, curiosity etc.

7. Pace and Progression
Technology as a data management system can provide immediate and accurate evidence of pace and progression of learning for individuals and groups through the use of data management, Pace and progression does not ensure learners make improved progress but alerts teaching staff and others to learners or classes where there are signs of pace dropping and progression falling. It is more to do with preventing an inability to maintain an expected pace. Using technology in this way simply highlights emerging problems rather than find solutions. This is the use of technology not to improve learning but to prevent its failure.

8. Beyond the Classroom
The manner in which technology contributes to the mechanics of working beyond the classroom, with particularly relevance to the land-based curriculum. It includes seeing learning as a continuos process and lessons in class no longer being the single critical incident in learning which has been the traditional hub around which the curriculum has been offered and designed. It is supported by campus WiFi and promoting digital literacy issues more widely on campus, as well as in revising curriculum design, reflected in lesson plans.
Capturing, recording, sharing and assessing learning can occur anywhere and the ability to accommodate this leads to widening participation of more specialised, customised learning. Rather than providers offering to respond to employers it also allows employers to use a provider VLE and other learning technologies to host and train their own employees with providers offering general tutor support and pedagogical guidance. 

in Leadership and Management:

9. Promoting a Vision
Developing, sharing and working within a Vision of this new Digital Literacy is a critical leadership responsibility. Providers fail to thrive in learning technology without it. The vision for learning technologies should include the contribution to teaching, learning and living. It must be coherent and understood by teaching staff. It should see the use of technology as a normal way of working rather than being a huge challenge.

Because technology is driven by others and its pace of development is so fast It includes the ability of managers to remove or at least softening the barriers to natural and inquisitive progression as technological possibilities develop and the curious teacher or digitally literate learner choose to use it. It will also include managing the tensions between the desire for a settled Culture of centralised control and order over the fragmenting of application and diversified hosting of learning through technology, at times only held together by those enduring teaching values.

10. Reputation
Technology generally and learning technology in particular is so ubiquitous it has the power to affect unique and special features of a given provider that differentiates it from other providers. How technology is used is an increasingly important feature of why learners will chose one provider over another. Through the use of social media irreparable damage can be done to a reputation and new approaches need to be found to engage in conversation rather than waiting to defend. When used well, how technology is used to affect the learning and the learner experience will be crucial to the success of any provider.

Geoff Rebbeck  - January 2013

The 10 benefits of learning technology to Education by Geoff Rebbeck is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Based on a work at http://www.geoffrebbeck.com/the-10-benefits.html.