Common to all higher education institutions is the need to reform and change the
curriculum to prepare students to become citizens in a world of knowledge-based economies
(Bates, 2005). Students today need skills and abilities to work in teams, to cooperate,
collaborate and learn with fellow students and staff in a community of learners. Within these
communities learners need to be able to solve real world problems and be self-directed active
learners constructing knowledge. This shift towards more active learning demands a more
student-focused approach to the process of learning and teaching in higher education (Prosser
& Trigwell, 1999) and that well-designed active learning is an effective way for student
learning (Biggs, 2003; Ramsden, 2003; Healey & Roberts, 2004). There is also a growing
body of evidence that technology applied to learning and teaching supports extended active
learning in and out of class (Paulson, 2002; Williams, 2003). But ‘technology-enhanced
learning demands that both technological and methodological abilities are put into play’
(Trentin, 2006, p. 182) and that it is difficult to find all these abilities in a single
person. ‘However good a teacher might be in class, he/she may fail in a distance learning
situation if lacking sufficient familiarity with technology-enhanced learning methods’
(Trentin, 2006, p. 184). This research suggests that faculties and universities as a whole
need to pay close attention to staff capabilities and their use of technology and to offer staff
development in ways that will best afford opportunities to improve on and re-think the way
they teach and their students engage in learning through technology. Research undertaken
in this paper investigates one faculty’s use of an online learning environment and a support
structure that builds staff capabilities in using online technology to engage students in
effective collaborative and meaningful real world activities.published_or_final_versio
