E-learning as a touchstone for didactic theory, and conversely

Abstract

Too often e-learning is seen as an undertaking of its own, at a distance from cut-and-dried, commonplace education. This contribution questions that view and further hypothesizes that, in a not so distant future, e-education will drop its historically transitional prefix, because the view will prevail that, to use a famous saying, e-teaching is a continuation of teaching with other means, and will therefore gradually become nothing else than plain teaching. In some measure, this paper tries to pave the way for such a change from e-education to new education by raising the question of how didactic theory in its anthropological fl avor, that of ATD can make sense of the peculiarities of present-day e-learning. To do so, we had to expound, albeit tersely, some essentials of ATD, and notably the pivotal notion of didactic organization, which allows one to think in unifi ed terms the old and the new. The broadening of didactic theory’s classical scope that results brings about some key ideas, mainly articulated through the twin notions of didactic hyperspace and hypertime, which should be the main targets of both empirical and theoretical work in time to come. In this transitional period, didactic research in the field of new teaching and learning will almost necessarily be a joint venture bringing together researchers (and practitioners) from originally distinct areas which, in collective terms, might be the biggest challenge to face.