Tony Karrer's eLearning Blog on e-Learning Trends eLearning 2.0 Personal Learning Informal Learning eLearning Design Authoring Tools Rapid e-Learning Tools Blended e-Learning e-Learning Tools Learning Management Systems (LMS) e-Learning ROI and Metrics

Monday, February 06, 2006

eLearning 2.0 - Is This Real

As part of pulling together two separate presentations on the future of eLearning, I've been doing a lot of research on the technology trends.

In the past talks, I've primarily discussed key business/learning trends:

  • Need for faster development
  • Need for shorter delivery time
  • Need for quick access in the context of work

and the resulting shift in eLearning towards

  • "rapid eLearning" such as recorded class sessions, quick-and-dirty courseware, etc.
  • performance support tools such as online reference, search, km, etc.

However, I'm seeing now considerable value in what is happening in the Web 2.0 and I believe much like Steven Downes - E-Learning 2.0 & Is E-Learning 2.0 For Real? - that there is a lot of value to be had, but I'm also concerned as to how much this is really happening.

Normally during my presentations, I talk about what people are really doing inside of corporations with eLearning. Certainly, I'm not seeing widespread adoption of Wikis, Blogs, Social Bookmarking, etc. within corporations as a means of sharing information and learning.

Am I just missing it? Is this just wishful thinking? Or are we just early on the adoption curve?

More soon.



Keywords: eLearning Trends, eLearning 2.0, Web 2.0

1 comment:

Bill Bruck said...

I've been sponsoring an online summit on learning 2.0 and talking to a variety of consultants and practitioners for several weeks now. Although the summit was titled Beyond the Hype: Business Applications of Learning 2.0, it rapidly became clear to me that we bring different situations to the table that we think of when we're thinking of learning.

I work with organizations, and I tend to think of learning initiatives sponsored (and funded) by lines of business within major corporations. Others think about academic situations, and still others think about purely self-directed learning (SDL).

While web 2.0 technologies seem to be making significant advances within SDL and may be starting in academia, with the exception of SDL within organizations, cases illustrating the use of blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, etc. to support organizational learning initiatives seems, well, pretty sparse.

And then there's the fundamental tension between the "open source" learning folks and folks who are supporting mandated learning initiatives...