Reflections
On eLearning
by Donald Clark
Contents
The
day is coming when the work done by correspondence will
be greater in amount than that done in the classrooms of
our academies and colleges.- William
Rainey Harper, distance - education pioneer and president
of the University of Chicago.
The
next big killer application for the Internet is going to
be education. Education over the Internet is going to be
so big it is going to make email usage look like a rounding
error. - John Chambers, president and CEO of Cisco Systems.
 The first quote was predicted by William Harper
in 1885. The second was delivered by Cisco's John Chambers
in 2000 (of course, Cisco is not the company it once
was). It seems as if every new media winds up as training's new darling. Trainers blame
their present tools and readily embrace a new technology.
But
in reality, these same trainers do not define performance
problems and solutions in the required detail, hence, they
go in quest of a magical silver bullet...unfortunately, there
is no silver bullet at the end of the trail.
Also
see 'E-education
is a New Thing'
The
validly of elearning is not in dispute, otherwise, why would
we discuss the issue in this context? Secondly, you as a student,
also believe in the validity of elearning, otherwise, why
would you be reading this document or using this handbook?
But,
there is great deal of hype, both on and off the internet,
of e-learning being the next great savior of training, development,
and education. This section will look at both the hype and
the validity of elearning.
To
begin with, the current status of the eLearning industry is
well discussed in a study: An
Examination of E-Learning and E-Books by R. Hamilton,
C. Richards & C. Sharp.
Resources
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