Digital Learning: challenge or opportunity?

Digital learning creates an opportunity to reach a student body thousands of times bigger than through class room teaching. Are Universities geared to embrace the opportunity, or will the logistics of accrediting and assuring learning at scale prove to be too big a challenge? In my field of older people’s care, the most important sources of support comes from family members, health care assistants and paid care workers, all without formal professional qualifications. It is estimated that there are 54 million health care assistants world wide, about three times as many paid care workers and, in the UK alone, over 6 million family caregivers. Digital learning creates the opportunity to share insights derived from academic research into how to deliver person centred care for older people, to empower these groups to “Be the Difference” in older people’s care. We need to embrace the opportunity, sharing the secrets we hold within our temples of knowledge.