It is with a sad note that I am the learning physician that has to declare that elearning (as it now exists) is dead. I am positive that many of you are going to say “WHAT”? eLearning has had a long illustrious life. As a baby, it was nothing more than a mail-order course delivered to interested individuals. As it grew up, the teenage years were expressed as computer-based-learning programs that were sent by disk. This was a huge expansion to the development of elearning as a youth. It created a distribution process that was previously unparallelled. It was a great youth experience.
As an adult, elearning showed its capabilities when it was delivered on the internet. With its capability to be available 24/7 and global delivery, it was just about everything that one could possibly hope for.
As it aged, it learned new tools to increase engagement. It successfully changed it self from paper reading to computer screen reading to browser based reading, but it still was nothing more than reading on a different platform. It did learn to add some fancy graphics as well as some novel java and flash tools to increase engagement, but it continued to suffer from a position of isolation. There was not much it could do that would to engage a collective of participants.
This isolation is what caused it’s unfortunate death. It reached millions of individuals, but could not find a way to assist them to learn as a group or community. eLearning is is mourned by its spouse Content Creation Tools and their children MOOC, edx, Coursera and udacity.
Copyright 2012 Bryant Nielson. All Rights Reserved.
Bryant Nielson – Managing Director of CapitalWave Inc.– offers 25+ years of training and talent management for executives, business owners, and top performing sales executives in taking the leap from the ordinary to extraordinary. Bryant is a entrepreneur, trainer, and strategic training adviser for many organizations. Bryant’s business career has been based on his results-oriented style of empowering the individual. Learn more about Bryant at LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/bryantnielson |
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