Contents Introduction Defining eLearning Growth of eLearning Influences From Outside and Within Education Concepts and Skills Bandwidth The Myths of eLearning The Pros and the Cons Communities of Practice Collaboration Knowledge Management What Should Be Taught Via the Web? The Bottom Line Developing eLearning Blended Learning Research on eLearning Final Thoughts

A learning methodology is a set of procedures composed of methods, principles, and rules for enhancing individual capacity and performance. When most people think of developing elearning, they think of the technology and content. However, this can normally only bring about knowledge, which is important, but learning often needs to go one further step -- performance. And this requires that a skill be mastered by the learner. While there are a number of means of achieving this, one option is a Learning Framework, which builds on the four main design architectures of: Receptive: absorbing information Directive: frequent responses coupled with feedback (behavioral roots) Guided Discovery: active constructive process mediated by problem solving Exploratory: finding and processing information The four architectures help us to learn by various experiences: Absorbing (read, hear, feel) Doing (activity) Interacting (socialize) Reflection (Dewey, 1933) The main strength of elearning is its ability to send information, thus its main architecture often turns out to be Receptive in nature. This post is a good example in that it sends text and images for the reader to absorb. The second strength of eLearning is its ability to allow us to interact with each other. Thus, we can get feedback from peers (Directive), we can discuss concepts with others (Exploratory), and we can have directed conversations to solve problems (Guided Discovery). For example, most blogs allow the reader to post comments so that a discussion can occur. The various designs shown above will allow the further growth of elearning. Designing and Developing eLearning Programs There a several free web-based courses and articles for the development and implementation of e-learning: Designing E-Learning - University of Leicester Gilly Salmon, Professor of E-Learning & Learning Technologies at the University of Leicester, talks about designing elearning in the following short video. elearnspace eLearning Technology elearning guru The e-Learning Jump Page The Devil is in the Details: Converting Classroom Courses to E-Learning Estimation Methods for Developing E-Learning A Thought-Provoking Article Newsweek has a very interesting article on design: Are Designers The Enemy Of Design? While the article is mainly directed at designers other than IDs, it reminds me of many of the issues facing our craft. A couple of quotes from the article: "Designers suck because they are arrogant. The blogs and websites are full of designers shouting how awful it is that now, thanks to Macs, Web 2.0, even YouTube, EVERYONE is a designer." "Over the past decade, design has evolved to become an articulated, formalized method of solving problems that can be widely used in business and in civil society. Design's focus on observing consumer/ patient/student-human behavior, it's emphasis on iteration and speed, its ability to construct, not destruct, its search for new options and opportunities, its ability to connect to powerful emotions." (we are often known for being slow, resisting new options, and causing boredom) "People want to be in the design sandbox so you have to figure out how to get them in and do design with them. This is a huge challenge." Linear or Dynamic? It has often been argued that elearning is dynamic while text and many other learning methods are linear. For example, the creators of a handbook and textbooks will normally try to put the various topics in a logical order, while at the same time, constructing it so that a reader may randomly flip to a topic or choose the topic from an index or table of contents. It is designed to be used quite dynamically, as compared to a novel. However, the reader can still choose to use it linearly by reading it from beginning to end. Another example is that there are plenty of elearning courses that are designed to go from the beginning to the end in a linear fashion, yet this is supposed to be a quite dynamic medium. Thus, it is not the medium that dictates the linearity of the content, but the methodology employed by both the creator and the user. Also, since text is linear, and the web is composed mainly of text, then why would we call the web non-linear? Now can one perhaps switch faster on the web? But of course. Books are a slower method when it is time to go non-linearly. The Two Facets The movie Pulp Fiction is linear in the way we normally watch it, however, it is dynamic in the way we perceive it -- it starts in the middle. Thus, the concept of linear verses dynamic has two facets two it -- how we use it and how we view or perceive it. Multimedia is often considered dynamic due to the number of methods employed, however it is often used linearly as various media are presented in order to explain one concept. Sesame Street teaches one simple concept at a time, and these concepts are reinforced in a number of way over a long period of time. It seems quite non-linear at first glance, however, it is just a matter of presenting information and then reinforcing it over a period of time through context. Where as Bill Nye the Science Guy stays with one concept and then builds a montage of contexts to support that one knowledge structure. But of course Nye's program is directed at a slighter older audience (although both shows can capture the attention of audiences from either side of the age spectrum), thus his topics go deeper. And to go deeper, you have to build context. Hyperlinks are built in the fashion of a book's index and some text has links similar to the web's hyperlinks (such as programmed instruction). An index shows you the context of different but related topics, while a hyperlink points you to a different content from within the present content. Now the content that you are pointing to can either be of a different content, sort of like Sesame Street does, or point you towards a topic that provides context to the previous content, as Bill Nye the Science Guy does. The purpose of jumping around in a learning environment with links is to build adaptive expertise. That is, if we want the learners to be able to apply the knowledge they gain in novel ways, then it should be presented in novel ways. But how true is that? When teaching psychomotor skills, it seems it is very true. For example, most large warehouses have several varieties of forklifts. On some of them you sit down facing forwards and its operation is similar to a car, that is, there is a steering wheel, gas pedal, and brake; others you sit down sideways (facing to the right of it) and use a joy stick to move forward and backwards (plus it controls the forks), move a crank to turn the machine, and you step on the brake to go and release it to stop; while yet another forklift requires that you standup sideways. Some of the machines have large clamps on them, rather than forks; while others have large steel plates (to slide under the material). Most causal bystanders would probably think it would be best to learn one machine completely, before learning the next. However, if you have the learners rotate through the machines during their practice sessions, they are then allowed to apply their previous learnings to the learning at hand. Thus, they learn faster and they become more adaptive with their new learnings. This is "transfer of learning" -- applying a previous learning to a new learning situation. It is somewhat similar to "transfer of training" -- applying new learnings to the job environment. Now how does this work with knowledge? Well, it depends on how you view it. First, there is little evidence that learning general problem solving skills transfer across content domains as first thought (Quinones and Ehrenstein, 1997). That is, adaptive experts do not have better problem solving skills than routine experts. When one looks at a knowledge-rich domain, such as chess or physics, the adaptive experts tend to have detailed knowledge of their domain -- they understand its deeper, structural features. Further, they store more information, which is better organized in long-term memory. They compile declarative knowledge into procedural knowledge and in turn, build condition-action rules. So the reason adaptive experts can build new theories and adapt to novel problems is their deeper conceptional knowledge of the target domain. There are two main ways of achieving this -- knowledge structures and metacognition. Knowledge structures are the schemas that one has of the task at hand. While a schema is a mental model of a person, object or situation. Schema include cognitive maps (mental representations of familiar parts of one's world), images, concept schema (categories of objects, events, or ideas with common properties), event scripts (schema about familiar sequences of events or activities) and mental models (clusters of relationships between objects or processes). To build these knowledge structures, one has to have a deeper conceptional understanding. How does one do this? Look at Bill Nye the Science Guy -- it is done by layering contexts. Thus, just as practicing one's skills on a variety of equipment leads to deeper and more adaptive skills, when one learns through a variety of contexts, one is better able to construct the schema that best represents the target domain. Secondly, one needs to become aware and in control of one's cognition. This is called metacognition. It allows one to become aware of and understand the relationships between task requirements and individual capabilities. Where as the schema tells the adaptive expert one can do and what one cannot do, metacognition plans monitors, and regulates the strategies for the schema. Now again why this type of learning may appear non-linear, one should normally finish one context before moving on to the next. Thus in reality, non-linear or dynamic cognitive skills are actually based upon leaning linearly. . . and deeply. In learning, almost any medium can carry a content as well as another; it is the learning methods or strategies that are the real trick. For example, the contents of this web page can be sent via radio, email, paper, or video, just to name a few. But what if this post was part of a learning package and I had to ensure that the learners understood it? Thus, I have to build certain methods into it so that they gain the experience to place its entirety into its proper context. Methods are directed at the learners, while media are directed at getting the methods and content to the learners. So we could send information about Sesame Street and Bill Nye through almost medium. However, I might decide that in order for the learners to gain the proper context (experience), they need to "see" both programs so that they could compare the differences (contrast the two). And if I choose to send this method out on video tape, then that tape is the medium that carries the methods that allows the learner to learn by absorbing. And in this case, this absorbing allows them to "contrast" the two shows. However, note that my method could go out by other media, such as disk or television. Now what if I decided that we needed to stop the pictures during certain segments so that a discussion could take place? Television will not work as that medium cannot be paused during its playing. What if our classroom has a VCR, so all I have to do is video tape them? Or perhaps I could buy them on a disk set through a training media company that would give me the rights to play them in a classroom? The disks would cost more than taping them, however I would not have to worry about copyright infringement (which carries huge fines). Thus media is about economic advantages once the choices have been narrowed down to the ability of the selected media to actually carry the instructional methods. Thus, everything that I have read and seen about blended learning calls it a mixture of media. But should this mixture of media be the first concerns of the designer, or perhaps should it be the methods that provide the context? Now is this level of distinction really needed? In "Media and Learning" Steven Tripp discusses Furnham and Gunter research in which they have found that subjects remember material presented in a print medium better than identical material presented in an audio medium or a combined audiovisual medium. The authors concluded that this was due to the inherent capacities of these different media to convey knowledge. However, the larger issue here is that Tripp concludes that the research supports the theory that media does in fact influence learning. However, if this research really did prove that media does influence learning, then we would really have to consider using print only. The main trouble is that in this research, different learning methods are employed. Thus, we have to go back to McLuhan's assertion that the purpose of any medium is to carry that of another medium, such as paper (a medium) carries text (a medium). However, when discussing learning, we also have to look at what is actually causes learning to occur. It might help to think of where the words medium and methods have their roots in. Medium has it s roots in the word "middle" -- it is the go between or intermediary. While method has roots in "journey" -- it is what actually gets us to a certain point. This is perhaps why every new technology, from television, to video tape, to elearning does not live up to its expectations as a killer learning application. We believe so much that a medium will affect learning that we approach it with the wrong goals in mind -- that is, our approach is the medium causes the learning, where as we need to approach it with the idea that its real uniqueness is its ability to carry different methods, and these methods in turn promote learning to take place. References McLuhan, Marshall (1964). Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Massachusetts: First MIT Press. McLuhan, Marshall & Fiore, Quentin (1967). The Medium is the Massage: An Inventory of Effects. Corte Madera, California: Gingko Press. Quinones, Miguel A. and Ehrenstein, Addie (1997). Training for a Rapidly Changing Workplace: Applications of Psychological Research. Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association. Tripp, S. D. Media and Learning. University of Aizu. Retrived on November 4, 2007 from http://itech1.coe.uga.edu/itforum/paper16/paper16.html