Higher Education and the Opportunities and Challenges of Educational Technology

Present educational technology creates a multitude of options for designing and delivering higher education courses – finding a proper set-up of teaching strategies and corresponding teaching and learning tools, i.e., interlinking them purposefully and meaningfully, however, presents a profound challenge to course instructors when (re-)designing their courses. Examples of technology-driven innovations in teaching higher education courses include the use of mobile and video technology in teaching strategies such as the inverted/flipped classroom and the use of collaboration technology in so-called ‘blended learning’ approaches which mix different modes of interaction between instructor and students, e.g., virtual and classroom interaction. Obviously, the students’ learning experience is readily enhanced by abundant online resources including educational videos on virtually every topic – and level of usefulness (whether guided by the course instructor or not).