I've spent enough time in London these past few years to be comfortable using public transportation. I'm especially enamored of the Underground, the labyrinth of tracks and trains that move hundreds of thousands of people around and under and through the city. Every time I board or disembark, the fem-bot voice telling me to "mind the gap" always makes me deliberately step over the open space between platform and train.
I used this as a way to illustrate a point during my recent presentation at the ELEARN conference: With more and more of us getting on board the elearning train, we are going to need to exercise the same kind of deliberation moving back and forth between our discipline and practiced-based platforms (since I was with research professors, I talked about epistemological frameworks) that we do when we board trains.
There are lots of gaps to watch out for. These happen to be the top 5 gaps where I have been know to fall between the metaphorical platform and train, so I do have a bit of emotion about each one. I expect you will have a few to add to the list. Please do.
- Innovation VS Implementation - Innovators want to navigate by the stars. Implementers need to watch for potholes. People who are innovators simply can't imagine that people responsible for doing large-scale technology or training roll-outs, or running a profitable business, or managing a high performing team, don't want to try a bunch of new ideas without knowing exactly what the benefits of the changes will be. Immediately.
- Research VS Practice - Basic research dives deep within a discipline to validate constructs adding to the knowledge base of that discipline. Practice-based research facilitates decision making, and often looks outside a discipline to find new opportunities. Is one better than the other? That depends on what you are trying to do. Sometimes a click-thru rate matters more than a level of significance.
- Corporate VS Academic - One of the glorious things about academic life is the responsibility to explore new ideas without concern for a specific outcome such as driving quarterly results, and being encouraged to go forth where no other scholar has gone before. One of the best things about corporate life is being held accountable for tangible (financial) results and having a campaign-focused point of view where team members must work toward a common goal. Sometimes, comparing these points of view is like comparing apples and...well, zebras.
- Product VS Solution - Companies sell products. Customers buy products to solve problems. If a company can successfully provide a product/products that solve a customer's problem, everyone wins. Companies routinely sell certain products to specific market segment. What happens when customer segments are "mis-underestimated" and company-designated "solutions" only focus on one or two products and are insufficient for getting the job done?
- Traditional VS Emerging eLearning - How fantastic that eLearning has managed to be around long enough that some of the best known examples of elearning - asynchronous online courses and LMSs - are now being described as "traditional"! This begs the question of what the emerging models of elearning are going to look like. Mobile learning? Immersive simulations and games? Intraverses?
I expect that these will keep me going for a while. Stay tuned.
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