Confessions of an elearning skeptic

This is my last post for this class and its seems appropriate to look back on what I have got out of the experience:

• I’ve become an avatar four or five times over.
• I’ve strutted my stuff in second life (and walked into a lot of walls in the process).
• I’ve seen elearning from the outside and elearning from the inside.
• I’ve seen what’s been, what’s here, what’s to come and what’s really out there!
• I’ve caught the del.icio.us bug and even learned how to type del.icio.us without having to concentrate really hard
• I’ve sold JuJu beans (but I haven’t mastered typing JuJu with making at least one mistake - practice makes perfect!)
• I’ve had more emails in my home email than my work email (and that’s saying something!)
• I’ve posted essays in a pubic space (now that is nerve wracking!)
• I’ve seen the good the bad and the ugly of elearning
• I’ve felt old (there’s nothing like new technology to do that!)

Am I still an elearning skeptic? Sure, but I’m a much more enthusiastic, informed, experienced and even a little evangelical skeptic.  A little skepticism is a healthy thing I think. 

Thanks Anne, the JuJus and all my EMT 1 coleagues, its been fun.

The elearning skeptic.

I have been pondering the many advantages of elearning this week and stumbled across one I hadn’t considered before. Elearning is green learning. Given that its world environment day today, it seems appropriate to make this the topic of a blog entry. When selling elearning within an organisation the focus is on efficiency and effectiveness. What about the environment? Think of all the paper that an organisation can save by not priniting out class manuals and handouts. Think of all the greenhouse gasses that are saved by staff not having to travel to and from training. In an organisation like mine this could be huge.

This got me digging around and I came across an great UK site called www.learningfootprint.com.  On it you can determine your organisation’s ‘learning emissions’ and how to reduce your learning footprint.

In May 2008 the NSW government announced that it would be carbon neutral by 2020.  This is the way of the future for all organisations and elearning is another tool to make it happen.  But how many of us think about our learning footprint and what we can do the reduced carbon emissions?

We can all do our part.  Go forth and eGreen!