In the beginning…

…there were books and instructors and blackboards and lectures.   And they worked pretty well for several hundred years.   Then, around 1969, the Internet was born as a Cold War project to create a communications network that was immune to a nuclear attack. The U.S. government created ARPANET, connecting four western universities and allowing researchers to use the mainframes of any of the networked institutions.  (That was all very good and well, but us commoners didn’t get to use it until the World-Wide Web became mainstream around 1994.)   In the 80’s we were still disseminating ways of distributing computer training and education through platforms such as AT&T’s Phoenix Authoring System, among many other company-grown systems too numerous to name.   CBT, or computer-based training, became the modus operandi throughout the early ’90’s, and with the advent of rich multimedia into the corporate vernacular, technology-driven training had gained a respectable foothold.   While this is admittedly a grossly-simplified view, my intent is to suggest that e-learning did not sprout up overnight but was a reasonably slow and organic process.  

E-learning 1.0 (or simply “e-learning”) was the first iteration describing how education, instruction and training could be distributed and disseminated to the masses.   It also included a way to record the impact of online instruction by providing feedback mechanisms (e.g., assessments and surveys) which could help organizations quantify the usefulness of such a delivery method.   Some e-learning platforms were so ambitious, in fact, that they provided functionality for such esoteric measurement tools as 360-degree feedback loops and skill gap analyses.  These tools were most heartily embraced in the corporate community where establishing and defending an e-learning platform’s validity by way of its ROI was critical to its survival and success.  

E-learning 2.0 is basically where we’re at today.   We’ve learned a few lessons from e-learning 1.0, and then some.  More than merely a new set of tools and technologies, e-learning 2.0 borrows generously from its predecessor by building upon lessons from the past.   There is a now a much greater focus upon the needs of the learning recipients.  Software engineers are called upon less and less to force-feed their insular development efforts upon the needs of the learners:  Functionality for functionality’s sake is no longer a value-added service.   Education in the e-learning 2.0 model is a bottom-up approach whereby the needs of the learners drive the technologies and business practices  instead of vice-versa.   Also, in e-learning 2.0, we have come to expect value of synergy in the learning community.  Many of the new tools and technologies focus on building synergy in ways that bring learners together in dynamic,  intricately-knit communities where the sum of the parts exceed that of the whole.

As for technologies, there have been many innovations since e-learning began to take root.  Social software technologies such as podcasts, integrated email and discussion forums, collaborative concept maps, web feeds, tagging, social bookmarking (and yes, even blogs like this one) are a few of the tools that aid in facilitating conversations, making connections, promoting collaboration and helping with context sharing.  

Make no bones about it; this is still somewhat uncharted territory.  The definition of ‘e-learning 2.0‘ is hardly defined.  In fact, it is up to you–that’s right, YOU–to decide what meaning we ascribe to this term, or whether this is even a platform we wish to use moving forward.    Hopefully, my blog will provide you with a forum to do just that.  I welcome your participation!

- Curt