While there are many dimensions to your observation here, one aspect of it is Learning Design - the attempt to create a framework/language to describe different types of learning activity sequences. In formal education contexts, these activity sequences can represent different pedagogical approaches (ie, they are representations of the educator’s “teaching plan”).

While much of the initial work on IMS Learning Design was about technology-enabled teaching and learning, I agree with your point about focusing less on the delivery mode - there are many ways to teach and learn, some with computers, some without. It would be great if educators could describe pedagogical structures in a “delivery-neutral” way, and then be able to decide later whether any given task is implemented online or face to face.

We’ve done some initial work on this in the new version of LAMS (V2) where any activity can be designated to run online or offline - so if you wanted to have a discussion of a topic at a particular point, you could run this online (in which case LAMS will set up a chat room for the relevant students with the relevant topic) or offline, in which case there is no online activity for the students, but the system can provide the teacher with handouts for students to conduct the task face to face, and also advice for facilitators on how to run the chat. In other words, the Learning Design (or “sequence”) describes the pedagogical structure independent of whether any given activity (or all of them) are delivered online.

For further discussion, see the article at:
http://lamscommunity.org/dotlrn/clubs/educationalcommunity/lamsresearchdevelopment/forums/attach/go-to-attachment?object_id=524228&attachment_id=524230

James