Shortly after posting my rant how eLearning 2.0 makes me edgy, I received an encouraging email from a friend, a very distinguished industry luminary. (Yes, it's true, some of we old-fashioned, old-school types still use email to stay in touch.) It pleased me to know that my friend understood precisely the kind of disquiet I was experiencing:
"Defining “Learning 2.0” is like nailing Jello to the wall", my friend remarked. "In many ways it’s just like “rapid e-Learning” in that everyone has their own interpretation of what is meant by the phrase."
"The problem with numbering evolutions of eLearning is that, like movie sequels, the subsequent iterations start to look pale in comparison to the original. All the same characters, just a slightly modified settings and progressively crappier storylines. Remember Rambo IV? Probably not. But that’s my point."
Just this past week Rob Chapman raised the ire of elearning practitioners in the UK with his article, The eLearning Diet: Not recommended for long term results. He revisited many of the various reasons why elearning is insufficient, including that tired old self-evident truth that we learn better from teachers, and that, at the end of the day, elearning is just another fad. Clive Shepherd responded with a spirited rejoiner, in which he explained why Mr. Chapman was just simply wrong about the 30 year fad that is today's global elearning industry. (And yes, I DO tend to feel that anyone who is still flogging these same old discredited reasons about why elearning isn't as good as face-to-face is hard to take very seriously. To quote Tony Karrer, "Well said, Clive!!")
Nevertheless, as I read Clive's comments, I was struck by the following comment:
"If e-learning is a fad then here's what we are going to be doing without when the fashion changes:
- web conferencing
- e-assessment
- collaborative distance learning
- social networking
- wikis
- blogging and micro-blogging
- podcasting
- games and simulations
- forums
- instant messaging
- and the whole World Wide Web! (Clive on eLearning)
It was nice to see someone suggesting that elearning as we know it today really is this much of a social media phenomenon, becuase I think many would contend that today's elearning continues to revolve around the online course. Per recent US Department of Education and Sloan Consortium reports, it seems fair to suggest that the current state of enterprise and higher education elearning today depends more heavily on online courseware that Clive's list would suggest. But then I was also reminded of promotional materials I recently saw for a January 2009 Bersin Associates report that seemed to infer that elearning adoption is fallng because elearning was becoming less formal and informal learning was on the rise.
Perhaps this means that the day is finally almost here when we can look foward to becoming less enamored with what learning looks like and instead will focus more on its outcomes and results.
Comments