In my last post I reflected that the eLearning industries seem to be at an interesting crossroads. Finally, there seems to be acceptance of elearning in market segments such as education, government (particularly for the military) and some of the vertical markets such as telecom, pharmaceuticals, finance, securities and insurance, media and publishing. And yet I also noted that there continues to be a strange malaise in the industries, as if everyone knows they needs to change, it's time to change, and nobody is quite sure what to do first. Hard to believe, but there continue to be big and influential companies out there asking if there really is a market for this thing called elearning.
Let's be clear, there is a lot to celebrate. Consider recent news from the world of U.S. higher education. The 2008 Sloan Survey of Online Learning reveals that online enrollments have been growing by double digits, far in excess of traditional campus enrollments:
- Over 3.9 million students were taking at least one online course during the fall 2007 term; a 12 percent increase over the number reported the previous year.
- The 12.9 percent growth rate for online enrollments far exceeds the 1.2 percent growth of the overall higher education student population.
- Over twenty percent of all U.S. higher education students were taking at least one online course in the fall of 2007. (Sloan-C, Staying the Course, 2008.)
So what's the problem with that? Nothing, really...It's just that, even after 13 years of being THE most obvious, self evident way to extend reach, reallocate resources and leverage better distribution and tracking mechanisms...eLearning still doesn't seem to get much respect. This is especially notable given the adoption rates of consumer technologies in the rest of our lives.
To date, elearning implementations tend to be most notable for the repeatable, reliable and scalable distribution of high demand courses using the Web. That's very good. eLearning is typically NOT notable for the creative ways that students are motivated and engaged - or not. That's definitely a problem. Especially at a time when some of the emerging model of what will very likely be the elearning of the future are coming from sectors that hae a lot more to do with games and entertainment than they have to do with pedagogy.
With looming cutbacks in travel, layoffs and job reductions, increased awareness of green alternatives, and an ever-increasing comfort with consumer technologies used in the service of learning and teaching, eLearning is going to be an increasingly important strategic consideration for enterprises of all sizes in the months and years ahead.
During my recent presentation at the ELEARN conference I asked people to consider some of the gaps likely to be encountered when working toward sustaining eLearning innovation in their organizations. (You can download this preso by clicking on ELEARN under the Presentation tab.) I suggested that we start with 5. I'm fairly certain we can come up come up with a lot more, but let's begin the next post by taking a look at the gaps between following sets of examples:
- Innovation VS Implementation
- Research VS Practice
- Corporate VS Academic
- Product VS Solution
- Traditional VS Emerging eLearning
Comments