D’Arcy Norman is one of my inspirations. Usually once a day or so he posts something that intrigues or challenges me. This is what I found when I woke this morning:

It’s very basic, but that’s the point of the video. Could come in handy in talking with faculty members – sometimes they have interesting concepts of what eLearning is (and isn’t)…

via Video: Sticky Concepts (introduction to) eLearning | D’Arcy Norman dot net.

I love this use of video. It’s right up there with the Common Craft stuff but there are a couple of things that bug me. Call me a curmudgeon but I really want us to be clearer about some of these constructs.

I know it’s popular to put e- in front of everything. Ever since Apple trademarked i- I suppose we needed a letter and e- for electronic is easier than c- or even cy- for cyber- even tho cy- might be more appropriate and accurate. In this case, since the video actually gives examples that are electronically mediated and not just computer mediated, I suppose the use of e- here is appropriate.

My real complaint is the use of Learning. While the authors allege to talk about electronically mediated activities for learning, what they mostly talk about are electronically mediated sources for teaching. The summary information about the learning environment that included syllabus, lecture notes, assignments, exam results, etc in particular made me question the appropriateness of the term Learning.

Take “syllabus” as an example. At its simplest a syllabus is merely an outline for a particular course of study. While these can be self-generated, typically they’re provided by faculty to tell students how much work they need to do to get a good grade. In a true e-learning platform, I think the platform itself becomes a kind of syllabus as the resources of interest get added to and removed from the environment based on the learner’s need.

At the moment e-learning platforms are much more student centered than these quick videos indicate. I think part of the reason for the oversimplification and the shift in perspective is because of the complexity of true elearning platforms, which really are an organizing component of a personal learning environment, and because mainly these videos target teachers (not students) and telling a teacher they’re not the center of the learning universe has predictably Copernican implications.

I do applaud the producers for including the little bit about web 2.0 connections they added at the end, but I think that really does say a lot about how the producers feel about web 2.0 and its relationship to the e-learning platform–it’s something to be tacked on the end.

Let me offer my own e-learning platform as an example and maybe it’ll help explain why I think it’s a different construct on its face than the e-learning platform described in the video.

First, the components:
1. My computers. Yes, plural. I have a collection of computers to help me manage my learning. My windows based machine gives me access to a collection of communications tools that are not available on my Linux machines. Notably, this involves proprietary environments like Second Life, which have problems with the graphics adapters available on Linux based machines. My main Linux machine provides the horsepower I need to actually produce work like extended works in an audio format and web based development where I can prototype my web presentations without actually needing a connection to the web or exposing the draft work to the public while in development. Last, my netbook provides a handy tool for basic communications and production on the go. I can tuck it in my pocket and use it when I need more space or speed than my smartphone provides.

2. My smartphone. This lets me access people who are at a distance when I’m not at my computer. It also provides a rudimentary interface to web based resources while I’m away from my main connection points. It’s an mp3 player which I use for listening to content when my eyes are otherwise occupied, and a camera that lets me record images of things that might take too long to describe or that can serve as visual referents. (I can take a picture of a plant which I can then show to an expert in order to find out what it is, for example.) It’s also an e-book reader and I use it to read texts when I’m waiting for something else to happen (grocery line, cooking dinner, picking up kids from school, etc). It might be worth noting that I also have dedicated devices for MP3 playing, taking digital images, and reading ebooks. The smartphone has the advantage of being always with me, while I need to make special arrangements to use the dedicated devices.

How I use these devices to manage and organize my learning will probably take a post by itself, but really boils down to asking what do I want to learn and what resources am I using to learn it. The challenge is integrating the many devices in ways that make sense to me so that the resources I want are available to me when and where I want them. The simple answer is, of course, I use my brain to organize the disparate components and only need to remember which place to find the information I want in the context that I find myself using.

Please notice that all this stuff in my personal e-learning network provides me with access to the kinds of environments described in the video, but those environments are only pieces of a much larger picture that comprises the real e-learning platform of my experience. Moreover, the e-components form a subset of my larger personal learning environment (or personal learning network) which includes resources that are both e- and not e-.

Bottom line: We’ve gone too far in simplifying complex constructs to facilitate understand when the simplification mis-represents reality. We need to be careful of that–although I did like the line, “As much E- as necessary and as much human as possible.” I wonder if the producers meant to include the learner as part of the human bit.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 1st, 2010 at 11:05 am and is filed under 682. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.