Fifteen and a half years ago, almost to the day, I was employed at UCT to pilot a computer-aided learning project aimed at providing additional educational resources for students on the then-MEDASP extended curriculum stream at Medical School. A mere Teaching Assistant, on a hand-to-mouth contract (whose terms would be illegal under the BCEA), I started out in those early days of Microsoft Windows using authoring software like Toolbook, Guide, HyperCASE and (later) Quest, cobbled together with DOS batch files and pieces of string. There was no Web. The Internet, back then, was mostly Usenet, the email was Pegasus for DOS, and Windows Sockets and FTP and Gopher were terms with meaning.
Somewhere along the way, the Web happened. And happened again - Web 2.0 snuck up on educators whose core was shaken by the notion of user-generated content, the wresting of power and Knowledge from experts and the right - and expectation - of learners to answer back. We've come a long way, right? Right??
Reading Gillion's blog on the Extended Degree Programme couldn't help but remind me of Nimrod's letter to Varsity all those years back, raising similar issues about MEDASP. Viewing Retroid's caution about Vuisboek reminded me of the baby vs bathwater skepticism around the use of Toolbook tutorials back in the early 90s. Every step resounds with echoes from the past. It's hard to believe it's been fifteen and a half years.
Although, back then, we had an email system that worked.... Pegasus for DOS, anyone?