As education is increasingly mediated through technology, how can we provide a model for advising that can keep pace? In a related discussion on pedagogy, the structure of the opportunity was framed by Terry Anderson and Jon Dron:
McLuhan 1964 first argued, technologies also influence and define the usage, in this case the pedagogy instantiated in the learning and instructional designs. In an attempt to define a middle ground between either technological or pedagogical determinism, we’ve previously written Anderson, 2009 about the two being intertwined in a dance: the technology sets the beat and creates the music, while the pedagogy defines the moves.
Anderson & Dron were looking at pedagogy in general, but the case applies to advising, as well. It’s really a two-fold problem. First, advising must connect students to digital (and global) resources as adeptly as traditional (and in-house) resources. Second, advising must adopt the lessons learned from the digital world — both from digital pedagogy and the digital world at large.