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NeedThe ‘need’ for professional learning in IM3 relates to the original motivations for working on theso-called ‘E-China’ project. On receiving that project to look after, I became aware of the hugeamount of knowledge, skills and understanding I would need to acquire in order to lead on itsuccessfully. I rationalised that I would need to find out, for example:• the philosophy and practice of distance education;• the technological challenges of supporting x million concurrent users of an online;system within the construct of ‘English as an additional language’;• how the current Chinese education system operated and the contemporary; arrangementsfor Chinese teacher education and professional development;• the realities of regionalised technology infrastructure in China;• the e-moderating 68 capabilities of my colleagues and partners.educgk 23/6/12 20:22Deleted: Teducgk 23/6/12 20:22Deleted: Teducgk 23/6/12 20:23Deleted: Heducgk 23/6/12 20:23Deleted: Teducgk 23/6/12 20:23Deleted: TIt seemed logical, therefore, to get close to the professional communities developing intellectualcapital in distance education, e-learning and inter-cultural education. APSCE – the Asia Societyfor Computers in Education is an organisation that brings together academics working across allthese disciplines. The conference itself, and the 2005 ICCE conference which I subsequentlyattended in Singapore, gave me access to these people who presented the latest tools for e-learning, published research work on the impacts of programmes delivered through the mediumof e-learning, were developing networked communities of practice and also understood thechallenges of taking their colleagues away from the comfort zone of a traditional learning space.They also brought me into contact with Chinese academics and thus to the culture of educationin the Far East. To explore the phenomenon of education as experienced by learners across Asiawould be of tangential interest to this thesis and must therefore be acknowledged but bypassed.68 I have deliberately chosen to use this term here, since I was, at the time, working under the influence of Salmon’sfive stage model (2000)260Simon Hughes Ph.D. Thesis (October 2012)