by Alan Nelson
I recently blogged about the impact of micro-blogging site Twitter on the box office performance of Sacha Baron Cohen’s film, Bruno. It got me thinking about whether the e-learning industry is as ready for Web 2.0 as it likes to think. I wonder whether we are being complacent.
It’s pretty clear that e-learning professionals are excited about Web 2.0. Whether through press releases and white papers on their websites or presentations at conferences and seminars, everyone is keen to promote themselves as the master of new collaborative technologies and their application to learning.
But do they really know what a Pandora’s box they are opening? Certainly few seem to see the irony of using Web 1.0 one-to-many vehicles, such as articles and presentations, to talk about many-to-many Web 2.0 technologies. Aren’t these the same people who have created the mind-numbing linear learning we have had forced on us by the tyranny of SCORM?
Having spent the last ten years being cast as left field because I had the temerity to suggest that it isn’t about “teaching” people but more about facilitating their learning, I find it incredible that these organisations, who for so long have insisted on their next buttons and “screen 1 of 48” navigation, should become the apostles of anarchy.
The topic of whether Web 2.0 is just a new set of tools for us to use or a whole new world with different rules and different attitudes, has been the subject of several blogs on this site (see here and here for examples). I for one am increasingly coming to the view that we underestimate both the scale of the challenge and how exciting it is. This is a revolution. The learners are taking over and they may not want the old teachers to stay in charge!
Comments