Are we out of date by even mentioning the term e-learning here? Is it even necessary these days? Let’s look at the facts.
According to learning entrepreneur Jay Cross he coined the term “elearning” in 1998.
Then Blackboard Inc. were awarded a patent for the term “e-learning” in January 2006.
A web backlash against Blackboard Inc. came about shortly after and a wiki was formed which attributes e-learning to Vannevar Bush all the way back in 1945 when he wrote an article about a proposed hypertext-like machine called the Memex.
Does this mean that if we offer “e-learning” as one of our services we run the risk of infringing on a patent set by a competitor?
Elearning, e-learning, electronic learning, enhanced learning whatever it’s called it would appear to have been around for a while now. Does this mean elearning is an old term though? Does the term e-learning have any place in this technologically advanced world?
Our company, Marton House is of course synonymous with the term e-learning as it is a massive part of our company offering. Though we quite often recommend instead a blended approach to learning, with facilitators and trainers supporting the material or vice versa with the materials supporting them.
So does that mean e-learning as a stand alone product has had it’s day? On the whole probably not as the benefits of e-learning still outstrips many more traditional approaches. It’s cost effective, it can be simultaneously rolled out in multiple locations world wide, it can feature data and accurate result tracking which is very difficult and slow to achieve in more traditional forms of delivery, and it can replicate and simulate complex systems during the learning process which means training mistakes do not occur on live customer facing systems.
Is it evolving though?
I’m currently doing some e-learning myself in the form of learning Spanish via my Nintendo DS. Suddenly I find myself as the student rather than the deliverer and as much as I have every belief in this game and what it can offer me on my path to speaking Spanish there is sadly one thing that is sorely lacking – the human touch. I met up with a buen amigo of mine at the weekend who speaks Spanish and for the first time I could put the individual words I had learnt into sentences.
Having someone to quiz and bounce off is sometimes the most vital need for the learning process.
The trick to effective training and learning is all about support.
So we mix e-learning with more traditional methods of delivery and we get “blended learning”, a term that does the job but doesn’t exactly get everyone in the room jumping up and down with excitement. It’s not a new term either.
Then we have feedback and peer learning as an extension to that approach.
So should we be pioneering a new term? Maybe it’s just me but electronic learning does make me think of the children’s learning aid machines from the 1980’s such as Speak ‘n’ Spell and blended learning makes me think of learning how to make cocktails.
We are dangerously close to the term “e-learning 2.0” cropping up and that makes me shudder. It’s too easy these days to strap on the term “2.0” to anything which is new but, as the evidence shows it is happening across all areas (see web 2.0, business 2.0, Jake 2.0 etc.)
Tomorrow we take a look at the journey from “e-learning 1.0” to “e-learning 2.0“. How did we get here and how on earth did we end up versioning everything?
The Learning Journey 
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June 4, 2008 at 3:21 pm
The Gorv
I think e-learning seemed very appealing when it first become widespread (whenever that was). It had a slickness, a sexiness and perhaps suggested an easier way of learning … learning magically via an electronic format.
Unfortunately I don’t think most e-learning has lived up to expectation – too much of it was not crafted with the user experience in mind. Ideas that worked in books or techniques that worked in the classroom were simply transferred onto the computer screen. Has it made learning easier, more exciting, more time-effective, better? Maybe ‘yes’ sometimes, maybe ‘no’ much of the time.
The thing is people learnt before there were computers … they learnt by what may seem to be “old fashioned” or “traditional” methods. But they still learnt. And often that learning was “blended” – in that a range of techniques were used (teacher explanation, teacher demonstration, pictures/diagrams, realia, video examples, slide shows, models, audio examples, Cuisenaire rods, repetition, practice activities, discovery activities, role-plays, quizzes, games, simulations, evaluations, etc). Learning was already blended – hasn’t it always been so?
So drop the ‘e’, let’s go for “learning”.
It’s all a way of packing up learning in a different way. We had audio cassettes to learn languages effortlessly 25 years ago (ha, ha what a joke they were) and I can even recall a set of gramophone records I was given to learn French (unsuccessfully). All of these things have their place, but none is the absolute answer. We need to accept that there are many ways to learn and that most learners learn best when they have a variety of techniques and aids … including, most important of all in my opinion, a human guide (teacher, trainer, instructor, facilitator, mentor, etc).
Learning is learning (in all its varieties and flavours).
And if you must version it, then I reckon it’s probably “Learning 387.0” by now!
June 5, 2008 at 1:43 pm
Tony Karrer
Do a search for eLearning 2.0.
June 9, 2008 at 10:02 am
Shoes Reviews
Unfortunately I don’t think most e-learning has lived up to expectation – too much of it was not crafted with the user experience in mind. Ideas that worked in books or techniques that worked in the classroom were simply transferred onto the computer screen. Has it made learning easier, more exciting, more time-effective, better? Maybe ‘yes’ sometimes, maybe ‘no’ much of the time.