e-learning 2.0: All You Need To Know
One of the strongest, but least hyped, uses of web 2.0 technologies over the past couple of years has been e-learning.
We've covered this topic extensively on
Read/WriteWeb - and so we're pleased to bring you this overview of e-learning 2.0,
including the leading web apps and sites in this niche, and predictions for its
future.
In August Steve O'Hear (now last100 editor) wrote an introduction to e-learning 2.0. He noted that teachers and students are embracing web technologies such as blogging and podcasting. Although not designed specifically for use in education, these tools are helping to make e-learning far more personal, social, and flexible.
According to Steve, the traditional approach to e-learning has been to employ the use of a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE), software that is often cumbersome and expensive - and which tends to be structured around courses, timetables, and testing [examples listed below]. That is an approach that is too often driven by the needs of the institution rather than the individual learner. In contrast, e-learning 2.0 (as coined by Stephen Downes) takes a 'small pieces, loosely joined' approach that combines the use of discrete but complementary tools and web services - such as blogs, wikis, and other social software - to support the creation of ad-hoc learning communities.
Examples of e-learning 2.0 apps and websites
edublogs.org and wikispaces.com are two examples of blog and wiki resources for e-learning. Steve's post includes many other examples of edu-blogging, podcasting, media sharing and social networks. There are some interesting web apps for students popping up, for example a collaborative note taking app called stu.dicio.us and the ReadWriteThink Printing Press - which enables users to create a newspaper, brochure, etc.
For an in-depth
look at one of the leaders in this space, Steve profiled Elgg - a social network for
education. This is an excellent example of how web 2.0 is shaping e-learning. Elgg is social networking software designed especially for
education - built from the ground up to support learning.
Described by its founders as a 'learning landscape', Elgg provides each user with their own weblog, file repository (with podcasting capabilities), an online profile and an RSS reader. Additionally, all of a user's content can be tagged with keywords - so they can connect with other users with similar interests and create their own personal learning network. However, where Elgg differs from a regular weblog or a commercial social network (such as MySpace) is the degree of control each user is given over who can access their content. Each profile item, blog post, or uploaded file can be assigned its own access restrictions - from fully public, to only readable by a particular group or individual. Click here for an insightful interview with Elgg's founders.
Note that this type of e-learning social network is similar to "smart" social networks, in which you can put access controls around your personal details, so that only people you trust can see them. Facebook, imbee, Vox, and Multiply are all examples of smart social networks.
Another great example of an e-learning 2.0 app is ChinesePod, which we profiled in November.
ChinesePod teaches Mandarin over the Web. It uses podcasting, RSS, blogging - and other
Web 2 technologies - to teach Mandarin Chinese. The business model is surprisingly simple
- subscriptions to language-learning materials. This complements the free offerings -
basically, the Mandarin podcasts - very nicely. For example, if you want to dive into
learning Mandarin straight away: select one of the episodes, plus you can participate in
the discussions. The first level subscription is called 'Basic' and gets you a PDF
transcript of the podcast. If you want get really serious about learning Mandarin, sign
up to the premium subscription service and receive learning resources such as Review
Materials and Lesson Plans.
The community aspect of ChinesePod shows what can be done with web 2.0 technologies in e-learning. Check out the Community page - which has a forum, wiki, blogs, photos, rss feeds. All the usual pieces, but each has a practical purpose. The wiki has extra links and information, the forum is well-used by users, the photos are lovely (of China), and there are a lot of great rss feeds to choose from.
Google, Microsoft, Apple, IBM - active in e-learning 2.0
What else is out there
currently in Internet-based education software? Well for a start, the Internet BigCos
all have products in the e-learning segment. Google offers the free Google Apps for Education (includes Gmail, Chat,
Calendar, Page Creator, start page). Microsoft has a range of education products (including live.com
hosting/email and potential groupware for education), and Apple offers free podcast
hosting for education (iTunes U). IBM is also a player in the education
sector.
Google seems to be
particularly active in education, amongst the Internet companies. It has Google for Educators, described as
"a platform of teaching resources". Also its Google Enterprise Professional program
has at least one education provider - Blackboard
become the first member of the program to focus primarily on educational
institutions.
Not to mention that online office products can be used to enhance collaboration in an education setting. Google Docs & Spreadsheets for example. In effect, the BigCos are able to leverage their current product range and promote them to schools.
Collaborative E-learning Systems
As well as blogs and wikis, there is a class of e-learning 2.0 software that is more of a platform product. These are referred to as collaboration systems and examples are Elgg, Nuuvo and Digication. As Digication's Jeffrey Yan explained in January, e-learning 2.0 tools are often promoted by educators in a grassroots manner. Which when you consider the usual hierarchical academic setting, is an interesting trend. Jeff told R/WW there is a community of users who support these tools and "their approval/disapproval with features, functionality and direction can make or break a [e-learning] company."
As for the near future of collaborative systems, Jeff Yan says that blogs, wikis and podcasts will start to merge with more educationally focused systems in 2007.
Traditional Learning Management System (LMS)
Also known as Virtual Learning
Environments (VLE), examples are Blackboard, Moodle and Sakai
(the latter two are open source) As we hinted at above, the big commercial software like
Blackboard is very 'old school' and doesn't have much focus on the community aspects of
learning. They're expensive and are generally seen as clunky and difficult to use - not
unlike traditional Content Management Systems in enterprises (Vignette, InterWoven, et
al). They also have a lot of features that most teachers and students don't want or
need.
However there are some newcomers that are interesting - call them LMS 2.0 perhaps ;-) As well as Digication and Nuvvo, there is Chalksite and haiku LMS.
Conclusion
As this article shows, there is a lot of web 2.0 activity in the e-learning space - including from the big Internet companies like Google and Apple. The current era of the Web is all about two-way communication, collaboration and 'read/write'; and the classroom is an ideal place to utilize these technologies. In the comments, tell us some of the e-learning apps or experiences you've encountered.
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Interesting article, I wholeheartedly agree with the summary of VLE's like BlackBoard. Moodle at least, being open source, presents a much better option in that you can adapt it to your own ends, one problem with all these systems is that they largely offer solutions for more standard academic courses. Once you start trying to deal with more visual disciplines the limitations are even more apparent.
Haiku and Chalksite look very interesting, I notice on the Chalksite website that it is up for sale and that if it is not sold it will be discontinued, that looks like a great opportunity for someone to purchase that!
The last post on the Nuvvo blog is from Oct 2006 and says that they're up for sale. I think they ran out of money so I'm not sure if any new development has happened since then. The tough part of working in the learning space is finding a business model that works. Most of education is controlled by state-owned monopolies while corporate training is seen as less important than other business operations. Both are hard to sell to.
I think that the future is in learning apps that aren't branded specifically for learning. One reason I like Elgg is that it doesn't use the "course" as its basic unit. That gives it a lot of flexibility for less traditional learning applications, like communities of practice or informal learning. Google search is another good example. It just works.
One common denominator of these e-learning apps is the inordinate focus on the 'e' and not so much on the 'learning.' ELGG, Sakai, and others are outstanding products to be sure, but they only provide a framework -- so where does the learning take place?
Until e-learning 2.0 apps can integrate both the 'e' and the 'learning' we'll never change the current textbook-based paradigm.
Thanks for a great summary. It looks like educators are really starting to embrace these new web 2.0 tools.
What we need now are the tools to join up the wikis, blogs, podcasts, etc in a way that the old LMS systems would.
Students need to be able to take their profiles and social networks with them as they traverse all the different wikis and blogs set up by their different teachers.
Another interesting development in this area is the use of new communication tools such as skype and instant messaging software. These too would benefit from a transferable 'profile' to enable them to be linked into learning resources for specific courses or topics.
I concur with Rudy: one of the great mysteries of education is why teachers don't embrace the new "NEW." Simple answer (to a complicated question) might be: because teachers are smart and are pragmatic and if they're gut feeling is: this is hype, most seem to "carry on."
I am amazed at how some people who scold teachers for not jumping on the bandwagon will also say "but this isn't the magic bullet" to solving education problems. Two things wrong with that line of thinking. 1). They don't mean it and they really think that technology (such as Web -/+ 2.0) will be much easier and save a lot of time; and, 2). Who said that we need to solve education's problems? It's a conversation and let's not get caught up in how to use the iPhone in the classroom because... instead, most teachers will use what works for their purposes (remember: they're the professionals).
What we really need is an Open conversation (without corporation funding or representation) between classroom teachers (active, mind you) about how to learn with technology.
Now, off to stand in line at my nearest AT&T store...June 29th is really close.
I previously worked in eLearning for one of the large companies mentioned above back in 1998 when the field was really taking off. I always had mixed feelings about both the tools and the final product. The content we produced was always top-notch, and we did pioneer many of the initial collaboration platform, though it was very difficult to drive adoption for a myriad of reasons.
Sometimes, the content we produced went very well, especially if it was a blended solution. But to echo the comments above, I still think the biggest problem with online education/learning is that many times the "learning" gets subjugated to a toolset or a sales pitch. While the content was stellar, we tried to fit all pegs into the same square hole. The information (or "instructional") designers often had more of a vocational background than an academic one. Step 1: Take content. Step 2: Squeeze it into templates. Step 3: Add multimedia. Step 4: Deliver.
10 years later, the tools have changed, collaboration has become widespread, but I still believe we make the same mistakes. Multimedia and online sims are fantastic when teaching a procedural walkthrough for a computer application. They fall down when trying to teach softskills or complex material requiring rote memorization. I really think multimedia or one-way is extremely narrow and extremely overused in dissemination of content.
Collaboration tools are fantastic for distributing materials openly, for having group discussions to provoke thought, etc. They aren't great for just-in-time information and it can be difficult to establish who is a greater authority (just look at wikipedia)
The common thread seems to be appropriate use of technology. Those that have had the most success are educators first, technologists second, and they've applied technology appropriately and sparingly to supplement and enrich the education, rather than trying to repackage it, replace it, or make it cheaper.
Great post!
While Elgg, Moodle, and the other services have grown very rapidly, most of the learning platforms listed above have been targeting individual teachers and classrooms, rather than districts.
This seems to be due in part to the legacy/enterprise software baggage that districts face. Blackboard is one of the only companies profiled that has been able to successfully plow through this brick wall (partly because they can afford to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on sales & marketing for each university/district).
I recently visited a high school in Philadelphia (Science Leadership Academy), which has been hailed as the city's School 2.0. They are running Moodle, and when I asked the vice-principal how they are getting their data synchronized with Schoolnet (which runs the Philly school districts attendance & transcript systems), they said they are manually re-entering it at the end of every term.
This is a terrible drain on a teacher's productivity, and until we as an industry get:
1) Buy-in from district-level administrators
2) Fix these data standards problems
3) Work on cooperating with providers of student information systems and companies like Schoolnet
Widespread adoption will remain limited. Personalized learning is a wonderful idea, but what we need are clear standards that will enable all of us who have laboriously built learning management systems to integrate content from publishers.
I'd like to point to the wonderful efforts of Jean-Claude Bradley, a professor of chemistry at Drexel. His Useful Chemistry project uses blogs, wikis, podcasts virtual worlds, etc to teach organic chemistry, and from what I know, with some success as well. His students are encouraged to put up their research on the web as well.
Ok, we are talking about "Edu-blogging" as a social network for education. I read that the main difference between a normal blog and an edu blog is the degree of control and access for each user. This is clear, but really I don´t see important differences comparing to existing e-learning platforms.
I am also a big fan of Flashcard Exchange http://www.flashcardexchange.com/
The ability to print the cards in Unicode is very helpful when studying languages in their native script. I also have downloaded flashcards to my Treo 650, and find that a fabulous vocabulary learning too.
Jef Benner: We also recently launched our flashcard feature with over a million cards. The tour is at:
http://www.proprofs.com/flashcards/tour.php
Jef: Our release is posted at:
http://www.centernetworks.com/proprofs-launches-free-flashcards
I am the Director of Internet development at the Connecticut Distance Learning Consortium and I think what you'll find in the move to eLearning 2.0 are tools like our ePortfolio (http://www.eportfolio.org) and eTutoring (http://www.etutoring.org) platforms. These provide student centered mediums to enhance eLearning.
I don't mean to put a plug in for our platforms, but I thought these types of applications which combine Higher Education initiatives with student centered applications.
Although I began as a high school teacher, I spent most of my career in corporate training settings (Amtrak and GE). To build on Chris Judson's comment, I strongly believe that most commercial learning system are not sold by and not sold to the people who make them work.
More often, it's one large organization's sales team pitching to another large organization's decision-makers -- the later often "make it so" types, which explains how my GE component ended up with an LMS with test-item abilities inferior to ones I'd used more than 20 years earlier.
As with SCORM (there's a reason it looks so much like "scorn"), the main "feature" of such systems is not learning, but administration. That may be a priority for many, but it contributes little to learning.
I agree Dave, Learning Management Systems are probably most useful for actually managing students, courses, marks, etc.
Students may learn better by searching out relevant content themselves and participating in a range of online communities. The educator can help by giving students the tools and skills to search and participate productively.
From a student's point of view, there is still a need to bring together the results of their searching along with their online community profiles and contacts in a way that keeps them orgainised and on track. Using online portfolios (such as ePortfolio mentioned above) and aggregators are a great way to achieve this. As online communities and content and community providers open themselves up with APIs and standardised login systems (like OpenID) it will get easier for students to manage their learning portfolio.
This is really interesting, and you've pointed me at a couple of resources I wasn't aware of so thanks for that.
Another really useful 2.0 site for educators that you didn't mention is flickr. I put together an example of how it might be used in a lesson for Home Economics, and my oldest boy has started using it for his homework...
As with so many of these tools, they will end up being used in ways that the creator's never envisaged!
How about Javablackbelt (http://www.javablackbelt.com/),
a website where you can take (multiple-choice) tests centered around the Java programming language?
To take tests users have to spend contribution points. Contribution points can be aquired by contributing new questions, value existing questions and the like.
This is a true web2.0 application, taking the web2.0 principle further by actively forcing users to contribute, rather than waiting for voluntary contributions.
I have been working on learning 2.0 models for the past four years and have found that the technology is secondary to the learning model. If you take Tim O'Reilly's principles (user-generated content, network effects through an architecture of participation, and web as platform) and apply them to learning, you need to find a way to combine expert and peer content and to allow learners to co-create the learning experience. There are two very good examples that came out of a program I developed for the American Library Association that really do apply these principles for learning:
http://www.sociallibraries.com/course/
and
http://plcmcl2-about.blogspot.com/
Both of these examples use open source free tools and let the students build the curriculum as they go along. They have been very successful and have become self-replicating.
Please email me kathleen-at-ottergroup.com if you would like to get on the list for more information about it.
Another LMS 2.0 that your readers might be interested in is Scholar360. It combines the academic features of Blackboard and other LMS but adds a fully-functioning social network that students love. Plus, it's easy to use and far more affordable than Blackboard - try about a third of it's price.
I'm a big believer in eLearning 2.0 and it's interesting to see this write-up of some of the things going on in the general space. However, I feel this post misses what eLearning 2.0 is really all about. Lumping things like Nuuvo, Google Apps in the eLearning 2.0 bucket without some explanation of how they might be used in an eLearning 2.0 way probably hurts more than helps.
What might be more valuable to the readers of R/WW is to focus on the fairly fundamental shift represented by eLearning 2.0 which is very similar to the shift represented by Web 2.0. After that shift is better explained, then look at how different tools and systems might support people who are making the shift (learners) or people who are responsible for helping others make the shift (corporate training / educators). At the end of the day, eLearning 2.0 is much more than would be indicated by reading about the applications listed in this post.
The most important thing to understand about eLearning 2.0 is that it is an immediately applicable and important shift in learning that applies right here and right now for most knowledge workers. Adopting a practice like blogging as a personal learning and networking tool or adopting Personal and Group Learning Using Web 2.0 Tools as a means to support collaborative work teams is something that is an immediate and important shift for knowledge workers - and that's you!
The bottom line is that eLearning 2.0 is not about a bunch of applications, it's about adopting practices that leverage these applications to support work and learning in new, powerful ways.
Well - at least you got me fired up - I've taken this comment and create a post with a bit more on the subject:
eLearning 2.0 - An Immediate, Important Shift
Interesting start here and I really enjoy reading RWW but I'm also going to agree with my friend Tony and say that this post also raises some issues (although I think it is in that good way of raising issues).
First, comment #3 by Rudy Lopes highlights my ongoing pet peeve. Rudy asks "so where does the learning take place?" Learning takes place inside someone's head. It is mediated not by technology but rather by the community in which the individual will practice or employ whatever knowledge, skill or ability they just learned. We have to stop thinking of technology as providing learning but rather in terms of it providing new and different opportunities for learning to take place.
Second, I've been involved with e-learning (yes, I understand the irony in using that term given my comment above, unfortunately it is the term of art here) since 1998 and worked for years on the Advanced Distributed Learning program (www.adlnet.org) - the same ADL that created and manages the SCORM specification. I've also been blogging about this stuff for years as well and given all that, I'd say I'm probably on the C or D list of edu-bloggers.
What might be helpful is provide your readers some links to some the A-List edu-bloggers who have been writing on and thinking about the impact of Web 2.0 technologies for a while now. I'll drop in an abbreviated list (yes, I know I'm instantly leaving people out I should be including - please add your own below) below.
Thanks for the post and welcome to the ongoing discussion.
Stephen Downes: http://www.downes.ca/ (check out OLDaily)
Tony Karrer: http://elearningtech.blogspot.com/
Learning Circuits Blog: http://learningcircuits.blogspot.com/
Jay Cross: http://internettime.com/
Scott Leslie: http://www.edtechpost.ca/mt/
Christopher Sessums: http://elgg.net/csessums/weblog/
Ewan McIntosh: http://edu.blogs.com/edublogs/
Will Richardson: http://www.weblogg-ed.com/
Hi,
It looks like Chalksite is up for sale too.
Thanks for posting this information, and Mark, thanks for all the links.
I was working on Learning2.0 more than 2 years ago (when I was with Saba (I no longer am), which did some great early work on this idea).
Since then, I've been a follower and participant in the eLearning Forum (at SRI) http://www.elearningforum.com.
They've been running a series on tools and issues in applying the concepts of Wikinomics to learning, and how it affects both the corporate and academic world.
Richard, I appreciate the ChinesePod reference.
First, I want to second Tony's assertion that the changes in learning are paralleling the impact of Web 2.0 on mass media. This fundamental shift, re-constructing the value chain around the needs of the end user/student, rather than the needs of producers of content or educational institutions, will reverberate through the learning industry for decades to come. I just wonder why the label isn't a little more 'digital native-esque' as simply Learning 2.0.
Second, with ChinesePod we have been able to build a business model around a three-point strategy that provides a more integrated learning experience for students. One, provide an attraction (free daily podcast lessons, in our case) to compensate students for their attention. Two, facilitate community involvement through use of a variety of software tools and active human participation to build out a community of practice. Three, continually experiment with a number of paid services to generate the revenue necessary to sustain the service many years into the future. Even though Chinese-training for English-speaking markets is only a 'small niche business' in Richard's words, ChinesePod will do more than a million dollars in revenue this year. While it has been easier for us by focusing on the more commercially-driven adult learning markets, I am convinced any successful Learning 2.0 platform must absolutely be market-driven (even if the platform is open-sourced - RedHat as a model?) to be sustainable.
Third, we see four critical value components to this new Learning 2.0 value chain: personal aggregation, social interaction, course & class management and content creation. Services, such as iGoogle, Netvibes and Pageflakes will likely continue to excel at personal aggregation functions. Facebook is stepping beyond the pack with its social interaction platform. It is nice to see sites, like Chalksite and others, step up and provide class management tools. Yet where are the Learning 2.0 course (i.e. organized learning content) management tools and learning content repositories? If bloggers can overcome the 'amateur' stigma, why can't amateur teachers start producing and monetizing learning content as well. Understandably, traditional educational publishing companies want to downplay authors to prevent stars from emerging (and therefore their costs!), but can't this gate keeper role be dis-intermediated and celebrity teachers now emerge? Where is the star math teacher? The star geography teacher? I know where the Chinese teaching stars are.
Just as we are getting to grips with 2.0, along comes 3.0 !
Second Life is increasingly being used for education and in the last few months language teachers have started to use the 3D virtual world.
As I think the above discussions highlight, it is still very much up to the educator to make best use of new technologies and with Second Life this is still very much in the early stages. What is especially good to see is that some of the language teachers have been meeting recently to share ideas and experiences with this (eg SLanguages 2007 Symposium). I think it is through this cooperation that we will move beyond the technology itself and into using the tools as teachers.
I would like to echo the comments above that e-learning 2.0 should be about 'small pieces, loosely joined' This is how many of us are using Second Life - not as a complete package, but as an integral part of a broader solution.
Please feel free to contact us at Avatar English if you would like to learn more about what we are doing and continue this extremely interesting discussion.
www.avatarenglish.com
contact@avatarenglish.com
I'm especially interested in the LMS 2.0 apps (chalksite and haiku). Seems like an undeveloped space. Has anyone used either? Can't seem to find an in-depth review.
I think what most people miss about Moodle is the fact that they have always had the goal of creating online learning communities. Moodle has been LMS 2.0 since before the term started popping up about a year ago in the blogsphere. Wikis, blogs, and other social networking tools have all been a part of Moodle landscape for years. Many people don't take advantage of it - but it is there. Most people in the Moodle community get a kick out of being labeled a "Traditional Learning Management System." "If only they knew..."
I have to agree with Hank ---
I just wanted to add that learning a language has special characteristics that work especially well with web 2.0. Speaking a foriegn language is partly a skill, and not entirely based on knowledge acquisition.
In that respect, practice is critical. Listening to a lecture or reading a book on grammar is helpful -- but maybe not as critical as spending time talking with native speakers. This is the basis of all those immersion programs in study abroad. And here is where web 2.0 and internet technologies make all the difference. With Skype, MSN, and all the VoiP applications, you can actually talk with foreign language speakers from around the world.
Using an international community to teach each other their own native languages (language exchange) is what sites like:
italki.com are doing.
Hi Richard,
One new education startup that's not on your list is edu 2.0, a next-generation education web site that makes teaching and learning more enjoyable and efficient.
edu 2.0 would probably come under your "collaborative e-learning systems" classification. It's the first web site to provide integrated support for teaching, learning, resources and community.
To learn more, visit http://www.edu20.org and click on "take tour".
Thanks for the great article!
Cheers,
Graham Glass
Great post! It's really very informative. I always knew about e-learning but I never knew quite how many sites there were that allowed a person to continue their education online!
You mentioned online blogs and I wanted to point you to these Distance Learning Discussion Forums & Online Education Blogs. They seem to be pretty informative, and it's really just a bunch of online students that get to chit-chat about their experiences. I hope someone finds it useful! :-)
~A
Creat summary.
I have been working on language education 2.0 for the past 1 year. and we build a website welang.com. When we do this, we learning more about education2.0.
After read this article, I feel i should thinking more about it. How to co-operate, how to build the community...
Thanks.
Would like to link up with company that is involved in elearning. I have contacts in China that is working on elearning for the government. Thanks, Chee
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It is very difficult for any person to learn a foreign language without teacher help, just to listen some CD or mp3, read some books and learn with a pre-designed software, especially for Chinese Language including pronunciation, culture, pinyin, characters, grammar, speaking and listening.
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