Reading: "eLearning 2.0"

Stephen Downes has written another excellent piece for the eLearn Magazine entitled “eLearning 2.0“.

“E-learning as we know it has been around for ten years or so. During that time, it has emerged from being a radical idea – the effectiveness of which was yet to be proven – to something that is widely regarded as mainstream. It’s the core to numerous business plans and a service offered by most colleges and universities. And now, e-learning is evolving with the World Wide Web as a whole and it’s changing to a degree significant enough to warrant a new name: E-learning 2.0.”

My first question is this; does it warrant the new nomenclature of eLearning 2.0? There are many who would argue that what we call Web 2.0 doesn’t warrant the name either; it is not a new version of anything rather the modification to how we use the web.

Reading further through Stephen’s article you do get a fuller understanding of the shift that has/is taking place between what we know as eLearning and what we are starting to think eLearning could/should be.

“Learning integrates into every aspect of our lives, from daily household chores to arts and culture. Learning and living, it could be said, will eventually merge. The challenge will not be in how to learn, but in how to use learning to create something more, to communicate.”

Anyway, please read, it is worth it.