About eLearning 2.0

Picture this scenario – it is 5:00pm and your boss sticks his head in the door, and says to you “I would like a report on the Korean market for our products by noon tomorrow”. He then takes away your mobile phone and laptop, disconnects your landline and internet, and then locks the door. It is obvious that this will never happen in real life – so why are we still insistent on traditional exams where students are expected to regurgitate what they have learnt, instead of teaching them to be resourceful with today’s tools.

eLearning has been around for more than 10 years. It has evolved from electronic content on floppy disks, to CDs, and then to online access to course materials, including podcasts etc.

Enter the Web 2.0 genre which marks the tipping point; the shift of the World Wide Web from being a medium in which information was transmitted and consumed, into a platform where content is created, shared, remixed, re-purposed and passed along. This facilitated the world of social networking (Friendster, MySpace, Facebook etc), wikis, RPG and blogging.

Created by cultural anthropologist Michael Wesch,
in collaboration with 200 students at Kansas State University.

Enter Generation Y (the Millennials), the “tech-savvy”, globally connected, multi-tasking
generation who grew up doing homework with music in the background, while instant messaging friends, downloading music, doing email, updating their social networks, eating dinner, and doing their homework, all at the same time…would they be able to learn if you put them in a classroom in front of a lecturer for hours on end?

eLearning 2.0 has the following differentiating factors from earlier versions of eLearning:

• Instructor-led, facilitated approach
• A learning community of real students who interact online, using tools like a discussion board, which operates like a blog.