From overhead projectors to microwave links : a personal journey of learning and teaching using an educational technology

This paper is a conceptually informed and critically reflective story of a personal journey with teaching, learning and research at a regional university. The metaphor of the Hero’s Journey is used to describe my learning and teaching journey. Christopher Volger’s twelve-stage adaptation of Joseph Campbell’s mythological Hero’s Journey is used as a framework to provide a rich description of my journey as a university lecturer from the late 1980s to the present day. My journey describes the demands of the changing face of tertiary education in the integrated multi-campus university where I work. It is anticipated that other academics will be able to use aspects of my journey to help them form a model of teaching, research and personal learning to suit their unique circumstances. At the same time, the Hero’s Journey provides a richly nuanced and effective tool for collaborative critical reflection on our teaching, research and learning endeavours.