How should the higher education workforce adapt to advancements in technology for teaching and learning?

In a time of change, higher education is in the position of having to adapt to external conditions created by widespread adoption of popular technologies such as social media, online social networking and mobile devices. Faculty members need opportunities for concrete experiences capable of generating a personal conviction that a given technology is worth using and an understanding of the contexts in which it is best applied. The paper examines approaches to educational professional development at The Open University and elsewhere, including recent initiatives related to faculty development in relation to mobile learning. It sets out what can be learnt from these experiences and proposes a plan for co-development of faculty and students in a lifelong learning perspective. Given that ‘professional role model’ to students is one of the main roles of the teacher, the author argues that faculty engagement should go beyond technology adoption in their teaching to adoption in research and lifelong professional learning.