The term e-learning Distance learning, distributed learning, online learning, e-learning, virtual learning, asynchronous learning, computer supported collaborative learning, web-based learning . . . these are a few of the many terms used to describe learning in environments in which students and instructors are not physically present in the same location. In burgeoning fields, it is commonplace that a variety of terminology is used to describe a new phenomenon. Clark and Mayer (2003) chose the word e-learning and described its functionality:
[T]he “e” in e-learning refers to the “how”—the course is digitized so it can be stored in electronic form. The “learning” in e-learning refers to the “what”—the course includes content and ways to help people learn it—and the “why”—that the purpose is to help individuals achieve educational goals. (p. 13)
The term e-learning, as well as some of the other terms, will eventually disappear. Electronic delivery will become just one of the options which we will consider to optimize learning for people. Broadband What we call broadband today is just a beginning of the kind of network access we will see in the future. Universities are connected by a fibre optic network that works up to 10 gigabits/second. That is 10,000 times faster than the typical broadband download of 1 megabit/second. There will be a next generation of broadband which will enable speeds 10 times greater than we have now and enable downloading of high definition movies and TV shows, VoIP, video telephony, full resolution streamed video and audio and the creation of unimagined learning environments. Learning management E-learning 2.0 will be a challenge for learning management systems (LMS, also called course management systems). At the time of this writing, most LMS solutions are designed for Web 1.0, with minimal capability for a fully functioning interactive environment. Nevertheless, LMS vendors will gradually incorporate Web 2.0 capabilities. At this time, education LMS solutions are ahead of corporate solutions in this respect. In the immediate future, LMS solutions will continue to be primarily administrative tools and only secondarily reallearning tools. Users will be challenged to find ways to use them so that they facilitate learning. For more information on learning management systems, see Chapter 7, Learning Management Systems. Eventually, we will be able to find almost anything online. Ten years ago, a colleague said that everything current and worthwhile was already online. This is more true now with Project Gutenberg and Google Books putting libraries of books online, universities making their course materials available (e.g., MIT’s Open CourseWare), communities creating knowledge repositories with wikis, and blogs making almost everyone’s opinions available whether we want them or not. The challenge will be for learners (all of us) to manage information overload. Much of this will happen beyond the scope of any locally installed learning management system. Google and other search engines will evolve to provide tools for people to manage it all. Content will be organized as reusable learning objects, much as they are in learning content management systems but on a much broader scale. Wikis and folksonomies may help solve this. Simply put, a folksonomy is a collaborative method of categorizing online information so that it can be easily searched and retrieved. More commonly, it is called tagging. This term is often used in websites where people share content in an open community setting. The categories are created by the people who use the site. To see how tagging operates, go to sites such as Flickr or Del.icio.us. Learning object repositories such as ARIADNE and learning object referratories such as MERLOT facilitate the exchange of peerreviewed learning materials in a more structured way. Personalization and context-aware devices such as GPS (global positioning system) units will also help. Personalization is the ability of a website to adapt to its users, like Amazon.com does when it suggests other books you may like, or for the user to adapt the website for his or her own purposes like Google does when it allows you to customize what you see on its website. RSS feeds are a way of personalizing information you receive from the Internet. GPS units can locate the user so that information can be customized for that location. For example, a user who lives in Chicago but is visiting New York would receive weather information for New York.