I am currently in a symposium session at the Media and Learning conference in Brussels, sharing our ideas about how we might engage students and staff in Higher Education with media rich resources. We have explored the issue in some depth with a particular focus on identifying what students want from their University courses, and whether they really know what they want (want .v. needs). The panel have skirted around what we mean by the term ‘engagement’ but perhaps not as directly as we are trying to achieve with the DiAL-e framework. Its purpose is to focus on what students are engaged in doing during a learning session, rather than what the teacher/lecturer wants to deliver or even achieve.
There is a strong tendency, particularly amongst some of the non-UK speakers, to orientate themselves towards a predominantly transmission model of teaching in Higher Education whilst the DiAL-e framework is predicated far more around a learner perspective.