What is Electronic Learning
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When the World Wide Web was launched in 1991, there was a surge of
interest in the possibilities of electronic learning (or e-learning). The use of
the Web as an educational medium was hailed as a harbinger of profound
changes for communities, organisations and markets. By now, well over a
decade later, one might expect that the concept of e-learning would be well
defi ned and clearly differentiated from other forms of learning. Yet there is still
a lack of consensus about what e-learning represents. For all the publicity it
has received in recent years, e-learning remains something of an enigma, and
its boundaries are far from clear.
E-learning processes and systems
Although the focus of e-learning should be on delivering learning outcomes
for people and organisations, much of the popular literature on the subject
is preoccupied with the deployment of specifi c technologies. This section
adopts a different tack. It begins by focusing on the crucial issue of how people
communicate and learn in an electronic environment. This leads into an
appraisal of some widely held ideas about the potential for creating modular
‘learning objects’, which in turn serves as background for a discussion of
the terms used to describe the technologies that have been developed to
implement and manage e-learning.
E-learning processes
Like any learning process, e-learning depends on effective communication
of human knowledge, whether this occurs in a face-to-face classroom or
across the Internet. Electronic technologies can no more guarantee effective
communication than they can transform ‘jxiqwop’ into a meaningful word.
The medium alone does not create the message.
The effectiveness of e-learning also depends on establishing two-way
communication between teachers and learners, and among learners
themselves. Unfortunately, when e-learning was fi rst popularised, it was
widely promoted as a means of minimising costs by delivering pre-packaged
content to large populations of learners by means of electronic networks
or CD-ROMs. Such an approach relies on one-way communication from
teacher to learner, attenuating the learning experience. It views learners as
atomised individuals and fails to take into account the social context in which
learning occurs. Above all, it does not engage learners actively in the process
of learning.
Learning content and learning objects
The major sectors that use e-learning — academic institutions, government,
the corporate sector and the community and general consumer sector
— approach it with different types of end use in mind. The approach to elearning
in corporate contexts is very different from that in formal educational
institutions. Historically, learning in educational settings has been organised
around self-contained subjects or course units. In contrast, many proponents
of e-learning in corporate settings envisage systems based on much smaller
units of content, known as learning objects.
E-learning technologies
At present, e-learning technologies encompass three main areas of activity:
• Content creation and management: the sourcing, creation, storage and
management of e-learning content — functions typically addressed by a
learning content management system (LCMS);
• Learning management: the capture and application of information
about learning resources, existing skills and learning activities to measure
and manage learning outcomes at the organisational level — functions
typically addressed by a learning management system (LMS); and
• Learning activity: the delivery of e-learning content, facilitating
interaction and learning assessment — functions typically performed by
instructors or trainers (Brennan, Funke & Anderson 2001: 10).