Beyond the VLE: Co-creating Virtual Learning Worlds

The Covid 19 crisis has delivered a major shock to our education system and its established dominant pedagogical logic(s). Old truisms regarding the nature and role of digital technologies in HE are being tested, with every HE institution working fast to build scalable competences in virtual and blended learning. We argue that VLEs, a key technology in the delivery of HE, are no longer fit for purpose. By emphasising the storing of information and pacifying learners who have little or no control to alter the VLE parameters to suit their learning needs, we argue that VLEs are no longer in tune with our post Covid learning and working practices. Contemporary work, incorporating remote and virtual settings, has evolved to become increasingly interactive, multimodal and digitally enabled. While virtual reality and similar contemporary technologies hold out more promise of interactive, student led learning environments, the dominance of the VLE prevails at the institutional level. Using a comparative case study approach this paper offers a robust conceptualisation of higher education beyond the VLE. Drawing on a heutagogical approach, we propose virtual learning worlds (VLW) as a model for higher education that moves us beyond the VLE to shift instead to a digitally rich learning environments, where the contemporary learner drives action while still realising the benefits of VLEs to trace learner engagement and coordinate assessments. We propose a model of heutagogically led, co-created virtual learning worlds that serve to simulate contemporary virtual and remote working practices. This has implications for higher education institutions who continue to invest in large scale bespoke VLE systems that we argue are no longer fit for purpose for contemporary education and work skills development.