Reflections on eLearning
The day is coming when the work done by correspondence will be greater in amount than that done in the classrooms of our academies and colleges. — William Rainey Harper, distance-education pioneer and president of the University of Chicago
The next big killer application for the Internet is going to be education. Education over the Internet is going to be so big it is going to make email usage look like a rounding error. — John Chambers, president and CEO of Cisco Systems
The first quote was predicted by William Harper in 1885. The second was delivered by Cisco's John Chambers in 1999 (Friedman, 1999).
It seems as if every new technology becomes training's new darling. Trainers blame their present tools and readily embrace new technologies. But in reality, these same trainers do not define performance problems and solutions in the required detail, hence, they go in quest of a silver bullet. . . but unfortunately there is no silver bullet or mystical orb to be found at the end of their journey.
While elearning is having a huge impact in the learning and training fields, there is still a great deal of hype, thus we will look objectively at both the hype and the validity of elearning. Reading selections may be selected in the left hand column.
Reference
Friedman, T. (1999). Next, it's E-ducation. New York Times, A29, November 17.