H808 Activity 5.2 Professions and Professional Values

My preliminary thoughts around definitions of Profession, E-learning, E-learning professional....

After what has felt like a most unproductive day of reading and digesting input, I return to yesterday's work on what I concluded were the main roles for e-learning professionals in my context:
* Learning Design
* Materials Design
* Learning Environment Design/Management
* Learning Technology
* Course Facilitation
* Coaching/mentoring
* Assessment of Student Learning and Evaluation of Programme Effectiveness
* Staff Development
* Learning Infrastructure Design/Maintenance

These roles are all relevant to a learning professional; someone who has subject matter expertise that is of value to students and who is able to create a context and has the skills and tools to engender effective student learning.

Arguably that definition applies equally to an e-learning professional, but that bald definition would overlook at least three important differences; the remoteness of the relationship between the e-learning professional and the student; the complexity of the electronic medium through which the learning is delivered; the opportunity that electronic media offers to create different relationships with students. Nonetheless, the outcome of e-learning professionalism ought to be the same as a learning professional - effective student learning. So is there a different professional definition? Hmmm.... to be continued;-)