Confessions of an elearning skeptic

At the start of my elearning journey it seems wise to take stock of some of the trends in technology and see where my current practice sits, and could sit, in relation to this.  To do this I referred to the Horizon reports for 2007 and 2008 from the Horizon project web site: http://horizon.nmc.org/wiki/Main_Page.

The 2008 report identified the following six emerging technologies:

(1) Grassroots video: Like most internet users, my main experience of this phenomena is through YouTube and, like most people, I am amazed at the way sites like this have taken off over the past few years.  My experience with grassroots video as an educational tool is limited, though I have used some YouTube based videos as part of presentations I have run in relation to incidental learning and knowledge management including the following:

Introduction to wikis

Introduction to peer assist groups 

(2) Collaboration webs: I have a very limited exposure to the concept of collaboration webs, with my recent use of Ning and del.icio.us being my only real venture into this space.  Like many people I have heard of Facebook, MySpace and Filckr but I have had no real interaction with them. I am very keen to explore this area further and get a better handle on how these types of technology can be utilised for adult learning though, like many people, I fear that internal IT constraints may make the use of this type of space problematic, at least in the short term.

(3) Mobile broadband: Part of my time as a learning professional was with a major Australian telecommunications company, so I am very familiar with this type of technology. The technology has certainly come on leaps and bounds, through it can still be very cost prohibitive when compared to ’wired’ broadband.  I am also aware of the trends towards mobile learning (so called ‘mlearning’) but my experience of this type of learning remains theoretical only.

(4) Data mashups: This is another concept I have only a limited experience of.  I am a frequent user of Google Earth and am familiar with the integration of map data and Wikipedia locations that is available within it.  I have no experience of this technology within an educational setting.

(5) Collective intelligence: My main experience of the concept of collective intelligence is with Wikipedia. 

(6) Social operating system: Social operating systems are something with which I am unfamiliar.  Though I am aware of the precursors such as Facebook and MySpace (as discussed above).

My experiences, in the educational context, of the significant trends outlined in the report are limited.  My current context does not significantly utilise technology for learning and much of its IT infrastructure is restrictive to the use on the on-line space for collaboration and learning.  Of all the trends, the most pertinent to me is the final one, concerning the gap between the perception of technology by the user and by the educator.  Being at the forefront of elearning I have experienced this first hand and am all too familiar with the fact that there is a growing segment of our ‘customers’ who embrace what elearning has to offer more than some of our practitioners do.

The Horizon Report 2007 identified the following 6 key technologies:

(1) User-created content: As outlined above, I have some experience with the key user-created content sites, though my use of them in the educational context is still somewhat limited.

(2) Social networking: Online social networking is something I am only new to and, once again, not something that I have not utilised in the educational context.

(3) Mobile phones: Having worked in telecommunications for a number of years I am very familiar with mobile technology. I have read about the use of mobile phones in learning (mlearning), but have not engaged in this type of learning, nor utilised it for the learning of others.

(4) Virtual worlds: I have heard for the phenomenon that is Second Life, but have no direct experience of it in any context.

(5) New scholarship: I am personally familiar with the concept of on-line publication and have read a number of e-books and listened to a number of educationally based podcasts. I have started to dabble in the use of podcast for distribution of learning content.

(6) Massivley Multiplayer Educational Gaming: I am very aware of the huge rise in on-line multiplayer games, chief amongst these being World of Warcraft which has over 10,000,000 players world-wide.  The use of this technology for learning fascinates me and I have read a number of articles in this area, though my direct experience is minimal.

Final word:  There is huge potential out there in relation to the use of technology in learning and, as an educator, I need to start focusing on getting across these technologies if I am to continue to meets the needs of my learners.

The focus of my first set of readings was two papers by John Seely Brown, former director of the XEROX PARC facility:

Seely Brown, J. & Duguid, O. 1999, Learning, Working and playing in the digital age.
Transcript from a conference on Higher Education of the American Association for Higher Education.
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/sci_edu/seelybrown/seelybrown.html

Seely Brown, J. & Adler, Richard P. 2008, Minds on Fire: Open Education, the Long Tail, and Learning 2.0, Educause Review, January/February
http://connect.educause.edu/Library/EDUCAUSE+Review/MindsonFireOpenEducationt/45823 

The thing that struck me the most about these two papers was that the broad concepts proposed by Brown in his 1999 paper are as relevant in 2008 as they were in 1999, and this is certainly a credit to his vision.  From my perspective the key changes since the 1999 paper are:

• The web has become almost ubiquitous and can be accessed from a plethora of devices from mobile phones to fridges making it an even more fundamental part of peoples’ everyday lives.
• The huge growth of online social networking tools such as face book and virtual worlds such as second life have allowed people to create vast networks of like-minded people, no matter how obscure their interests may be.  This provides access to a level of knowledge sharing beyond anything possible in 1999.
• The online collaboration tools outlined in 1999 were cutting edge technology available only to researchers.  Today anyone with a computer has access to powerful, but free, collaboration tools, e.g. my 10 year old son can contribute to one of the world’s most popular encyclopaedias (wikipedia).
• The rise of the ‘open source’ culture has made vast amounts of information and knowledge accessible to everyone who is interested and has broken down the traditional learning pathways by allowing us to learn the bits and pieces we need to perform a task.

To a large extent the core issues raised by Brown are being adapted although, to some extent, this adaptation is occurring more in the public domain than within traditional educational institutions and workplaces.  This gives rise to issues of control over what is being taught and learned and the quality of the interactions that are occurring.  Educational institutions and workplaces need to further embrace new technologies such as Web 2.0, Second Life etc to ensure that the learning they provide compliments and leverages off the learning that occurs in the public domain.  

From my perspective the key challenge is to ensure that access to these new ways of learning is available for all, specifically:

• that we bridge the gap between the information ‘rich’ and the information ‘poor’ by ensuring that all people have affordable access to the internet
• that we address the divide between the digital natives (those that naturally adapt to learning on-line) and the digital immigrants (those to which this type of learning does not come naturally) to ensure that people are not excluded from these exciting learning opportunities

In the past the challenge was to give people the skills to find information.  Now that they have access to an almost unlimited amount of information the challenge is instead to give people the skills to be able to judge the quality of the information that they find and be able to sort though all the information available to find that which is valid.

I found the example Brown cites in relation to Xerox technicians to be a classic example of the type of knowledge management challenge that is facing organisations such as the one I work for.  We have an aging workforce with a vast amount of corporate knowledge stored in its collective heads.  Our challenge is to capture this before this workforce departs, particularly the tacit knowledge which is generally not recorded.  The collaborative tools outlined in the Brown articles offer the means to do this, provided we can overcome the ‘technology barrier’ perceived by our older employees.

The other key challenges I face in my workplace are:

• The lack of ‘bandwidth’ in all locations, meaning the user’s experience varies from site to site.  Some sites do not have broadband access.
• The perception that this type of activity is not ‘learning’ and therefore is not measured as such in the minds of staff
• The perception that there are some things than cannot be learned this way
• The perception that this is the cheap version of learning that you get when it is too expensive to deliver face to face learning.