Friday, March 03, 2006
So, why E-Learning 2.0?
Well, there are two answers. The purpose of this blog, as I've mentioned, is to discussing e-learning issues in general. I'd have preferred some of the more obvious names, but they're all taken on Blogger (almost all by blogs that haven't been updated in years). I could have bought a new domain, of course, but that involves spending money that I don't have. So I went for the best name dealing with course management that I could get.
As for why the term E-Learning 2.0 itself matters, it's easy to be flip and note that Web 2.0 is already a frontrunner for the Web Catchphrase of the Year. E-Learning 2.0 is certainly a deliberate (and trendy) variation on that same theme. But both phrases represent, beneath the veneer of trendiness, legitimate paradigm shifts. Over the last few years, technologies and concepts like blogging, tagging, social networking, and wikis have moved from the fringes to the mainstream, and have influenced how we look at any web-based technology. We no longer expect a website to just present information or allow us to submit something via a form. Likewise, when using e-learning software, we expect more than just a static discussion board and an article repository. We expect to customize our experience with our own preferences, to interact with others in the same class, to share information we learn, to add our own knowledge to it, even.
That's what E-Learning 2.0 and Web 2.0 are about: moving beyond the point at which e-learning needs to gain acceptance, and improving on it to make it more directly relevant to today's learners and teachers.
Well, there are two answers. The purpose of this blog, as I've mentioned, is to discussing e-learning issues in general. I'd have preferred some of the more obvious names, but they're all taken on Blogger (almost all by blogs that haven't been updated in years). I could have bought a new domain, of course, but that involves spending money that I don't have. So I went for the best name dealing with course management that I could get.
As for why the term E-Learning 2.0 itself matters, it's easy to be flip and note that Web 2.0 is already a frontrunner for the Web Catchphrase of the Year. E-Learning 2.0 is certainly a deliberate (and trendy) variation on that same theme. But both phrases represent, beneath the veneer of trendiness, legitimate paradigm shifts. Over the last few years, technologies and concepts like blogging, tagging, social networking, and wikis have moved from the fringes to the mainstream, and have influenced how we look at any web-based technology. We no longer expect a website to just present information or allow us to submit something via a form. Likewise, when using e-learning software, we expect more than just a static discussion board and an article repository. We expect to customize our experience with our own preferences, to interact with others in the same class, to share information we learn, to add our own knowledge to it, even.
That's what E-Learning 2.0 and Web 2.0 are about: moving beyond the point at which e-learning needs to gain acceptance, and improving on it to make it more directly relevant to today's learners and teachers.
# posted by Adam Smith @ 12:07 PM 
