by Jacqui Nelson
Recently I was lucky enough to attend my first BILD event. It was entitled Learning Design and Web 2.0. It was an interesting day and I thought all the speakers were worth listening to.
But the most interesting thing for me was an underlying tension in the room about exactly what Web 2.0 means for learning. Although the discussion was nothing but respectful and polite there were, to my mind, two very different schools of thought emerging.
The vast majority of people in the room were experienced, established learning design experts. They were the great and the good of BILD. These people had been at the top of their game in learning design for some years and they exuded the ‘been there, done that’ mentality which comes with experience.
To them Web 2.0 is not something to be scared of or to get over excited about. To them nothing has changed in terms of learning design or learning theory. All the concepts and rules and theories that we learning professionals hold dear, still remain. What Web 2.0 does is give us a new set of tools with which to achieve our learning objectives. Interesting and exciting tools, yes, but tools just the same.
Makes sense, I thought, as I listened to the second speaker that day who was encouraging us not to confuse babies with bath water. At Nelson Croom we’ve always advocated a carefully considered approach to new ideas and technologies. Even in the early days of elearning we were one of the few, perhaps only, elearning companies pushing the ‘evolution not revolution’ idea, which I’m sure is part of the reason we are still a successful elearning company when so many of our then competitors have fallen by the wayside.
This idea was challenged, however, by what I expect will be the next generation of learning’s great and good. The crux of this counter argument was that by confining Web 2.0 to the ‘tools’ idea we are completely missing the point. Web 2.0 is much more than this. According to the other side of the argument Web 2.0 is a fundamental shift in attitude. It will change the way people interact with each other forever. This analogy wasn’t made at the time but to me it sounded like this change was going to be on a par with the move from the postal service to email.
I don’t know who is right. Only time will tell. And however much I love the romance of the ‘Attitude’ camp; I stop short of believing that this will be the case for learning, at least for foreseeable future.
We deliver a lot of qualifications for our clients. With any qualification, students have some set things that they have to learn. Most want to learn those things as quickly as possible. Some Web 2.0 style, online communication, sharing and collaboration will make the experience more enjoyable, and make them more likely to stick to the job in hand but it’s learning and retaining the information that will ultimately get them the letters after their name. Expert generated content still lies at the centre, and that’s not a very Web 2.0 attitude.
CPD could be different. As more and more professional associations move from an inputs based approach to a more output based regime, I can really see a role for Web 2.0. If what you want is reflection, consolidation and recording of everyday development as opposed to a logging of number of minutes/hours/days spent on courses, then Web 2.0 can help. What could be more developmental than discussing a relevant topic with others in your profession from around the country or even the world? What’s more reflective than writing a blog? Collaboration, networking, sharing and communication tools are a great opportunity for CPD and I reckon that if we learning professionals can demonstrate the advantages and benefits of these ‘tools’ we will change a few attitudes along the way.
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