E- Learning Then and Now
THEN
Donald Clark made a bold statement in his 2012 TedX talk,
‘There have been more pedagogic changes in the last 10 years than in the last 1000.’
This statement was made 10 years ago. I would be bold enough to go further and highlight there have been EVEN more pedagogic changes in these last 10 years than the previous 10 years with the biggest changes coming in the next 10 years with the introduction of web 3.0. He talks about the move from face to face university education to delivering education online and all that means for the student.
Benefits of electronic learning verses face to face. One of the biggest benefits to come from e-learning is the ability to return and review content over and over and over. I attended undergrad Uni in 2006, if I missed a lecture, I missed valuable course content. With the evolvement of e-learning you can access freely, repeatedly.
TedX is a prime example of the vast availability of education at ‘your finger tips’ whenever you want or need it. TedX went online in 2006, close to 20 years ago but it hasn’t been ‘mainstream’ until the last 5 years – in my opinion. And their are topics from art, to ethics, to history, to self care and parenting available in short bitesize talks. You will find Donald Clark’s TedX talk below.
NOW
As the world becomes more and more accustomed to e-learning and even further digital learning, the problem space as I see it is the acceptance of digital education as a standard rather than an anomaly. And for each educator and student to move forward with the changes and the challenges this brings while embracing the enhancement to education it can offer. As an example in a previous post within this blog (here), the author indicates a negative for e-learning as feeling isolated with lack of interaction from the lecturer. The provocation being the lecturer still has a preference for face to face interaction and hasn’t fully embraced digital education – not increasing the interaction opportunities or taking full advantage of interactions online with students perhaps. He describes e-learning as a grey area – e-learning has previously been a grey area as it has taken baby steps through progression. I would suggest it is now and will be in the future it’s own shade of vibrant yellow – an entity and of itself, not to be confused with face to face learning as it is facilitated (not delivered), digested, interacted with in a completely different way than sitting in front of a lecturer taking notes. No comparison.
CHALLENGES
Moving forward I see challenges in equity of access to these future ideations of e-learning. The future where we meet virtually via avatars and learn clinical skills via VR. There are current issues with inequity across the world with the current web 2.0, if the future brings 3.0 any faster the divide with widen swiftly.
Ashley Wyse
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Thanks Ashley! It’s good to see you rejecting the simple comparison of face-to-face (f2f) with online. I wonder if we need to separate those modalities quite so firmly though? For me, there is always a crossover between online learning and face-to-face (in f2f learners are always using digital technology and in online learning learners are always physically present). Maybe it’s really the context and aims of any teaching and learning that we should focus on rather than whether it is online or face-to-face? Methods then need to be attuned to what it is that’s important for that instance of education?
Thanks Tim, yes I think the transfer of f2f and online is to simplistic. There are of course overlaps – we are all present in some way during online learning – either as a student consuming or as the educator/facilitator uploading the content deemed relevant to the course, with digital footprint, or of course live. What I find challenging, my problem space, is the expectation to squeeze what was previously delivered as f2f and squeeze it into an online set up with no thought behind changing the method. eg. live lectures but via zoom. So yes, I agree that the method then needs to be attuned to what is relevant/ needed for that instance of education. A verbal lecture either in person on via zoom is not always the most effective method.