E-Learning 2.009
By Eva Kaplan-Leiserson
What does technology have in store for learning in the year ahead? We talked to experts in Web 2.0, mobile learning, and games and simulations about top trends and their forecasts for the near future of e-learning.
Web 2.0
Tony Karrer is CEO of TechEmpower, an e-learning and e-performance design company, and manager of the Learning Circuits blog.
Anders Gronstedt is president of training and consulting company Gronstedt Group and host of the weekly “Train for Success” meetings in the virtual world Second Life.
What are the hottest trends in Web 2.0 for learning?
Karrer: Web 2.0 is all about pushing the responsibility for content creation out to the learner. That represents a pretty radical shift for training organizations. The things with the biggest increases are blogs, podcasts, communities of practice, and wikis. The common element of all of these is [they’re] relatively lightweight to create and easy to get out.
Gronstedt: [I] see a huge amount of growth in virtual worlds such as Second Life. The real benefit is the ability to have a sense of presence. In a virtual world, you can see who is talking, and that’s just really powerful.
Are some Web 2.0 technologies more disruptive than others?
Gronstedt: I have to say it’s virtual worlds. I think it’s going to cross over the chasm and go into the mainstream. Once you’ve experienced it a couple of times, there’s no going back to boring old Webinars, conference calls, and virtual classrooms.
I think it’s disruptive because it really changes the paradigm of learning. It’s changing from a lecture to a true conversation.
How is the training department’s role changing in light of these tools?
Karrer: In some ways [Web 2.0] increases the total workload for the training organization. You may not own the content, but you own the overall solution, you own the coaching, you own the mentoring. And so [a] training organization has to shift to be more of a moderator/aggregator/coach rather than a content creator and publisher. Training, formal learning…will still be used for broad audiences with common needs. E-learning 2.0 is all about more narrow needs where you can’t possibly go into the publish model.
What obstacles interfere with Web 2.0 adoption?
Karrer: A lot of organizations try to start by coming up with an e-learning 2.0 strategy and try to do it top-down, and it’s almost doomed to failure. Successful organizations go in tactically. The other failure is, some organizations’ IT staffs will shut down people’s ability to create new content using these tools. A surprisingly large number disallow access to common Web 2.0 tools through their corporate firewalls. Bringing in tools that release control is a scary proposition.
Gronstedt: There’s really only one challenge:..the entrenched [bureaucracy] in most organizations. Bureaucrats in HR, legal, and IT…who have a vested interest in preserving the past. Also within the training departments [are] people who want to maintain their LMSs and courses and curriculums and old 1.0 ways of doing things, the old traditional top-down approaches.
How can organizations overcome the obstacles you described?
Karrer: The training organization first and foremost should start to adopt these tools for their own practice so they can become skilled. Then go after getting that tool in place for those knowledge workers and helping them build the skills. [For instance, they can] sign up for a software as a service tool and avoid the IT dept. The other thing to do is go find who already has these tools installed. [A] wiki is almost guaranteed in most organizations; there’s somebody somewhere with [one]. So go find them, become their friend, and adopt their tool.
Gronstedt: It’s not like [legal and IT] concerns are illegitimate, but we as a training profession have an even more important cause that we need to fight. That is for the talent flow into our organization.
If we don’t embrace Web 2.0 approaches, this talent is going to go right across the street to our competitors who do. So we have to find a way to work around or with these bureaucrats to embrace these approaches.
Mobile learning
Judy Brown is an educational technology consultant, Masie Fellow, and former director of the Academic Advanced Distributed Learning Co-Lab.
David Metcalf is a faculty member with the University of Central Florida’s Institute for Simulation and Training.
What are the hottest trends in mobile learning right now?
Brown: I’m seeing a lot of lightbulbs go on. I’m seeing sessions at [conferences] being standing room only. There’s always been interest, [but] it’s mostly been, “What’s she talking about, and why would I use that small screen?” Now it’s, “I see the need, I see the use. Now my employees are asking for it.” I see some courses and training happening in mobile learning, but I see performance support as probably the biggest push.
Metcalf: I’m really excited about some of the things we see possible with…the camera phone, because it opens up a whole world of being able to just point at what you want, shoot, and get information. [And] with the higher-end phones that have GPS….If you have that, you can do location-based learning. We’re starting to see this used for new employee orientations and for virtual tours. The last thing…that intrigues me is crossing the boundaries. [For example,] some of the alternate reality games [that] overlay virtual assets and learning elements into the real world, using the mobile device as the gateway. We’re seeing people use this for leadership training, for new employee orientation.
What are some of the mobile learning applications you’ve seen that you think will be best practices?
Brown: Some of the really simple things I’ve seen are some language training, some flashcards. That’s really simple to do. If people are testing for some sort of certification and need to review things, the tools are there and it’s kind of a no-brainer. Some of the simplest applications oftentimes are the best. But you’ve got anything from coaching and mentoring to reviewing any kind of a job aid to pieces of a course.
Mobile learning has been talked about for many years. What has hindered widespread adoption? When will it happen?
Brown: We didn’t have the connectivity. We now have wi-fi on the devices. The screens are getting better, keyboard entry is getting better. There are 508 solutions. We’re seeing voice input. As we’re seeing more and more [devices] deployed…we’re seeing the benefit to businesses now. As we see [them] out there, it just seems like a natural that training should be really proactive in working in this area.
Metcalf: I think it’s probably going to catch on when people realize they shouldn’t just do mobile learning, they should design their learning so it can be mobilized too. That way you don’t really have to build mobile learning so much as you have to build good universal design. As you make that transition easy for people—to build it once and deliver it [in] many different formats—that’s going make it prolific, because people won’t have to think about it.
What other trends do you see for mobile learning?
Brown: Social networking is a pretty nice experience now on a lot of the mobile devices. [I’m] seeing the mobile devices being used as clickers or audience response units in meetings and sessions and training. [I’m] seeing some [learning] games coming onto mobile devices. [I’m] still seeing a lot of podcasts.
Metcalf: I think people will start to see the promise of mobile as part of the alternate reality games, as the use of point-and-shoot learning becomes more prolific, with the camera phone being so easy to use and access, and also the location-based learning. That whole notion of context is really becoming important. And I think those trends are going to happen in 2009 in big ways.
Simulations and games
Anne Derryberry is an analyst and advisor for serious games, online learning games, simulations, and virtual worlds.
Clark Quinn is executive director of Quinnovation, a consultancy providing design services for games, mobile learning, workflow learning, and more.
What are the hottest trends in simulations and games right now?
Derryberry: We are starting to see an uptick in the use of serious games in corporate settings. What we’re going to start seeing is a lot of attention paid to the use of mobile phones as a platform for games and simulations. And a little bit further downstream, as the client for virtual worlds, which is very exciting.
Quinn: There are more game companies trying to portray themselves as serious games companies, and they’re continuing to push for million-dollar-budget games. The awareness is beginning to penetrate that there are lots of business needs that can be met on a smaller scale than that. It doesn’t take millions of dollars. You can build little Flash games.
Are certain technologies in gaming and simulations more disruptive than others?
Derryberry: As virtual worlds and simulations become more ubiquitous, we’re also going to see that productivity and learning are going to be knitted more and more closely together. So that, when you bring people together in a virtual world, it won’t just be for a learning experience and then later they come back and do what they learned together. We’re going to be learning at the same time as we’re doing. That will be a huge disruption.
Quinn: Maybe the disruptive thing is debunking that [games are] just for Generation Y. We realize that the classroom and that whole event-based model of learning is just broken. We [ask], “What is good learning?” Oh, it’s deeply immersive, contextualized, meaningful practice. We just described a game. So it’s the best learning for everybody, not just for Generation Y.
What are some of the drivers that will help get these new innovations implemented?
Derryberry: In some sort of backhanded way, the downturn in our economy may be helpful to people who are in the games [or] simulation business, because in large corporations, travel budgets are being slashed. So if we need to simulate presence in some way, then these are the kinds of solutions that are going to offset those budgetary requirements. [In addition,] because the departments and ministries of defense around the world have put so much money into using technologies as integral parts of their training operation, young people who have completed their service and are moving into the corporate setting are going to start asking, “Why aren’t we taking advantage of the technology the way the military does?” So new entrants into the workforce are going to start driving demand.
What are the obstacles to adoption of games and simulations for learning?
Derryberry: The initial investment in getting these kinds of virtual environments up and running is pretty significant, both from a monetary perspective and from a work perspective.
Quinn: It’s really about understanding. It’s about management not understanding that it’s about better learning, not wasting time. It’s about people who do want to implement [games and simulations] not really understanding what are the elements that make these things really work for learning. It’s not just about production values, but it’s about the deep design. I think we’ve got pretty good tools. I think the barriers are between our ears.
Eva Kaplan-Leiserson
is a freelance writer and editor who was formerly associate editor of Learning Circuits. She microblogs about the intersection of people and technology on Twitter, @evakl, and can be reached at evakl@comcast.net.