Learning 1.5 - for those who prefer evolution to revolution
This week I had the job of setting up a new Moodle site in order to run a course for a European Union project I am involved in. The people hosting the site (the very capable and modestly-priced pteppic.net, asked me what domain name I wanted for the site. I hadn't really given this any thought, but made a bit of an effort to come up with something that meant something - at least to me.
I had a mad moment and thought of working it around 'learning 2.0'. First I checked out what on earth it really meant. David Jennings reminded me:
"What is E-learning 2.0? Well first of all it's a rhetorical manoeuvre by e-learning suppliers and consultants to distance themselves from the failures of the first wave of e-learning. Secondly it appears to be the bastard neologism offspring of e-learning and Web 2.0 technologies."
Fair enough. So yes, I do want to distance myself from the first wave of e-learning, the wave that was (at least in terms of corporate usage) almost entirely centred on interactive self-study materials (a.k.a. good old CBT in a browser). And yes, I wanted to emphasise that the courses I would be running on this site would be highly collaborative, making use of forums, chats, learner blogs and wikis (which is all rather Web 2.0).
However, what I am doing is not informal learning. It borrows some of the technologies associated with informal learning and places them in the context of a course. And contrary to much current opinion, I believe courses have a place:
- When records of completion are critical.
- When the student wants to obtain a formal qualification.
- When the student really wants some help and structure to get started with a new topic.
So I decided on learning 1.5. It's a blend of formal and informal learning, old and new e-learning technologies. It's for those that prefer evolution to revolution. It's a term that I would probably advise you not to repeat in polite company (and certainly not in front of David Jennings). It's not a concept I take too seriously, unless of course it looks like there's money to be made, in which case I may decide to patent it and sue you all.
posted by Clive Shepherd @ 3:14 PM #
6 comments
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6 Comments:
Hi Clive,
Not sure if learning 1.5 will work unless people understand what version 2 is about?
What it could be is the first half of Jay Cross's graph of informal/formal learning:
http://photos5.flickr.com/9697496_1bd1996e35.jpg
From: http://metatime.blogspot.com/2005/04/to-every-thing-turn-turn-turn-there-is.html
... where there is a need for people who are getting started on a particular learning path to be taken through a formal "course".
Thanks Mark. You're absolutely right in that 1.5 in itself just infers 'a little better than what we started with', which, come to think of it, is what it is.
Thanks for the links. I agree that 1.5 corresponds to the first half of Jay Cross's chart.
Hello all
I like it.
'Courses' are very much alive and kicking with the adult students I teach but they also like the directness of a simple blog with links to activities. I'm using a blog to front up a Moodle course for files, drafts of assignments and assignment submission.
Clive - I really enjoyed your tongue-in-cheek post, but there's also enough to it that it may be worth using the terms. I've created a post that talks about intermediate aspects and I do think there's value in describing it. I'm not 100% sure it's really "on the way" to 2.0 ... but certainly it helps identify the trend and some of the issues.
Since I was a bit glib about the terminology as well, I'm now thinking that I should haven't been since it may be helpful. I'll be curious to get an update from you on this.
All of this 1.0, 1.5, 2.0 stuff is really just a bunch of techy guys playing at marketing, although the person who started it all was Esther Dyson's in her book 'Release 2.1 A design for Living in The Digital Age'.
It's the language of programming and assumes that there are points at which code is frozen for release. The internet is the very opposite, there are no freeze points, knowledge is fluid. It's a continuum.
Really enjoyed this post which made me chuckle. It's interesting to look back on what was written a while ago. What I am seeing happen is your '1.5' version of courses, but they are open, so people can do the '1.5' thing if they want or can dip in and out the course on an informal basis:
http://wikieducator.org/Facilitating_Online
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