Pedagogy, m-learning and financial stringency

This article serves two functions. First, some universities are charging headlong into blended learning, offering courses in virtual mode and developing massive open online courses. It is not unambiguously clear from the available education literature that the investment undertaken to achieve these ends will achieve a desirable payoff. We examine a subset of the literature on blended learning and find that there are grounds for scepticism about the overall benefits to student learning outcomes. Secondly, we present a case study of real decision making processes in an Australian university where it can be argued that decisions made on the basis of questionable strategies around such things as m-learning are displacing tried, tested and successful strategies for managing teaching programs.