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E-Class of Tomorrow
May 14, 2009
By Bjorn Billhardt
It has been close to 10 years since John Chambers, CEO of Cisco, famously declared that "e-learning is going to be so big, it is going make e-mail look like a rounding error." Needless to say, e-mail has not become a rounding error—and online learning has not yet fulfilled the potential its early pioneers envisioned. Almost a decade after companies such as UNext, Quisic, and Pensare set out to create classes with world-famous professors and MIT put its entire curriculum on the Web for free, most people associate e-learning with tedious compliance and silly defensive driving courses rather than quality education conveyed in an innovative online format.
But what happened to that promise of using online technology to better education? Why aren't the world's best instructors reaching thousands of students and employees with innovative online course technology? Much of the problem lies in the fact that many companies still use e-learning as a last resort rather than as a strategic tool to create a more effective workforce. And even universities are still struggling with how to integrate online classes into their core curriculum. E-learning—often in the form of archived Webinars, narrated slide decks, or online reading lists—simply will "have to suffice" when there is no time or money for classroom instruction. The biggest advantage cited for online courses is their "convenience," not their effectiveness. While innovative new technologies are evolving faster than ever and the promise of effective online learning has never been greater, the reality of e-learning today is not much different than it was 10 years ago.
So let's explore what online learning could and should become in the next decade—and address some of the obstacles that are standing in its way.
The Online "Experience"
Most importantly, to fulfill the true potential of e-learning, the online class of the future will have to be different from the structured curricula offered to students in the traditional sense. Rather than clicking on "next" buttons and going through a linear experience, students should be allowed to go through an individualized experience and become part of a learning community. Very little should remind them that they are following a class with an instructor at the helm.
On the most basic level, this new type of online class will be able to use many new Web 2.0 tools, which enable an array of modes and venues for learning. Consider an online class held in Second Life: Visual examples and simulated scenarios could play out before the learner's eyes and interact with a community of learners in a way an online PowerPoint presentation cannot. The first forays into this type of collaborative online world are being made today as companies such as IBM use blogs, wikis, social bookmarking, tagging, and Second Life for internal communication and meetings. According to the Wall Street Journal, "IBM owns more than 50 islands in Second Life and often uses them for lectures and group discussions."
Adaptive Learning
But maybe Second Life is not the right tool for a particular student. That is fine, because the online class of the future will adapt itself more easily to each learner's style than the classroom instructor has been able to in the past. Do they think they know the topic and want to test their skills first? They can start playing the class simulation online and see how they stack up. If they get stuck, they can take an online tutorial or research some basic principles on Wikipedia. Do they want to read a book instead? Here is one that covers the same topic. Are they stuck and unable to comprehend a complicated formula or relationship? Perhaps a teacher lends a guiding hand, but just as likely a peer in the community recognizes that helping is a better way for them to gain understanding than simply reading the material.
Adaptive learning, which allows learners to adjust the speed and mode in which they learn long has been a promise of using technology-enabled learning, yet the promise only now is beginning to be realized by instructional designers and course developers. Some students still want to take a class in a linear fashion. But technology will be able to offer more choices to people who want to learn in a different way.
Learn by Doing
Another component of the online class of the future is a strong emphasis on learn by doing. Unlike that favorite college class so often cited and remembered, an online classroom cannot rely on the charismatic personality of the instructor. What works to keep a room full of students engaged in a classroom setting does not work when translated to an online environment. A recent effort by a top-rated university professor to create the online equivalent of his highly successful class illustrates the point: The effort to capture the wit and wisdom of this professor in an online narrative fell flat and had to be abandoned; the stories that worked so successfully in the classroom did not work for students when put into an online multimedia format.
Instead of trying to capture the entertaining punch lines delivered by a strong classroom instructor, the online class of the future needs to provide its own interactive narrative and material to students—students need to try their hands at applying learning in interactions, simulations, and games. Only when the online class engages the student in its own form of "entertainment" through challenges, competition, and collaboration will the learner view it as equivalent or superior to a "real" classroom.
New online curricula such as "Fluent in Finance," an online finance curriculum for non-financial managers, were designed with this type of online experience and community in mind. Instead of reading assignments, students compete in an online simulated world for market share and learn about finance as they make decisions in the simulated environment. Rounds of game play, in the form of simulated business quarters, advance every other day, and the community comes together for a facilitated debrief once a week.
Community and Collaboration
Finally, new collaborative Web experiences allow for more meaningful online student-to-student interaction than was possible in the past. Just as study groups and team projects have been successful components of the classroom for a long time, so can online study groups, shared exercises, and role plays using Web 2.0 tools facilitate a deeper learning experience than assigned readings and basic threaded discussions.
With collaborative technology such as Google Docs, students already are able to work collaboratively on written assignments and presentations, making team assignments more efficient. But even more is possible. No longer does a class need to end with the final exam—instead, with modern social networking technology, a community of learners can continue to stay in touch and participate in meaningful interactions and networking beyond the final exam.
Additionally, as existing technologies grow and develop, so does the capacity for institutional memory. Through social networking sites and wikis, online classes will be able to create databases of former students' questions. User-generated video, as is found on YouTube, can provide a venue for both in-class projects and discussions, as well as for learners to model solutions and strategies for others. Some classes will be able to integrate this user-generated content into future sessions.
Challenges and the Future
None of this is to say that utilizing these new technologies is easy or always will be successful. There are many pitfalls when dealing, for instance, with online communities and user-generated content: How do we know it furthers the learning? What if peers learn from inaccurate sources or provide false information? What if arguments erupt? As Will Thalheimer, a leading researcher in the learning and performance field (www.work-learning.com), points out, learners often are going through a learning experience precisely because they need to understand the "knowledge structures" in which to integrate new information. A user- generated blog does not provide the novice with these structures and sometimes can confuse learners rather than provide them with the frameworks they need.
Yet, while no curriculum should be structured entirely around informal learning, collaborative tools—within a sound framework and the right level of expert intervention—can become powerful additions to an online learning experience. For instance, Jet Blue University (JBU) uses blogs and wikis to facilitate communication among its faculty. Murry Christensen, JBU's director of learning technologies, says the project was developed with "the spirit of social media...not making top-down decisions about structure and architecture, but rather letting those bubble up from underneath, in the same spirit as user-driven content."
But creating the online class of the future means radical thinking for an industry that is not used to disruptive technologies and rapid change. Instructional designers, rather than being in control of carefully crafted learning objectives and talking points, need to become more like curators who can assemble a variety of learning tools, techniques, and materials. Instructors, rather than being strong in-person communicators, need to become sensitive moderators who can provide learners with commentary and coaching that will lead them to the learning objectives.
Even more challenging may be the transformation of the institutions and training departments that can offer the online classroom of the future. In today's economy, many of the early visionaries of online learning have disappeared, and few companies are willing to invest in new, unproven technologies. And much research still needs to be done to validate when and how these technologies are instructionally beneficial. But the first results from using new collaborative tools, in the form of enthusiastic students and real performance improvement, already are trickling in. Despite the setbacks inherent in the creation of a new type of instruction, the promise of a truly transformational online learning experience is closer to reality today than ever.
Bjorn Billhardt is CEO of learning solutions company Enspire Learning, Inc.
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