Frequently we get caught up in thinking in dichotomies – either/or traps. For example, the discussion about using the web is often framed in terms of a choice to either use technology OR not use technology. One can hear the modern day Hamlet:

To Digitize or Not to Digitize: that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous technology, Or to take arms against a sea of computers, And by opposing end them? That is the question...

However, there is another metaphor that is useful to think about when using technology that avoids the either/or trap – the teacher’s palette. Like the painter, we all have a palette of teaching and learning colors we can choose from, we can mix together to create new shades and colors. Technology simply becomes another set of colors available to us. Like the painter we will choose and mix, often experimenting, combining what we already know with new and fresh options.

If we extend this metaphor, one of the things we should hope to achieve with our students is to create a palette for them too. We want them to create and construct their own unique mix of knowledge, experience, and learning that they can apply to various problems and challenges. What technology, and specifically the web, allows us to create is what I call the Rich, Resource Environment.

In a sense your web course becomes the actual artists’ palette, holding the array of colors and providing the space to mix and combine – to integrate and synthesize. Like all palettes, a web course is simply a vessel – it’s up to us to determine how many and which colors it will hold and to provide the canvas on which we and our students will use our knowledge, experience, and skill.

It’s not a question of high tech or low tech, to web or not to web. It’s how we mix what is available to us to best suit our purposes. That is the question.