Christopher D. Sessums :: Blog :: E-Learning 2.0 and the rest of the story

As I sat pondering Stephen Downes latest report on E-Learning 2.0 I could help but wonder about the rest of the story, i.e., getting today's (and tomorrow's) faculty and universities up to speed.

Edubloggers are an interesting breed. We spend countless hours reading, reflecting, testing and playing with the variety of tools offered by Web 2.0 developers. That makes us, in essence, a breed apart.

I work regularly with many university professors. Some see the possibilities of encorporating new technologies in their daily teaching and learning environments. They do what they can to build their courses in a fashion approximating Siemens' connectivist theory. Most faculty I work with on a daily basis choose to ignore these theoretical and technological advances simply because they are quite comfortable doing what they have done for the past ten to twenty years.

Is their a tipping point inherent in e-learning?

With the university still providing the credentials necessary for many professions, their existence is still fundementally requisite, no matter how archaically/glacially they approach the fluid dynamics of real world needs.

If only universities operated on a Business 2.0 basis, working with industries to determine what strategies, skills, abilities, and technolgies graduates need to possess that foster success. Perhaps this is an overly idealistic view. Such a model might bring an end to the concept of a liberal education. Where will all the poets and philosophers go? (Why into educational research, of course.)

Although I readily embrace Seimens' philosophy of a learning ecology, I am troubled when I look around my campus and see professors clinging to their business-as-usual model. For me, e-learning represents the "perfect storm," the perfect opportunity to literally re-think how we teach and learn. This notion of critical reflection provides an opportunity for educators to not necessarily change others, but to change ourselves, to achieve a greater understanding of ourselves and our roles that consequently change our actions and our thinking. E-learning represents the ability for educators to transform our ourselves, our practice, and our world in ways that foster creativity, deeper learning and possibly even an opportunity to end various forms of social and economic oppression.

Whew!

Am I asking too much of e-learning? Perhaps the tipping point is closer than I am imagining. Those of us involved in edublogging are connecting and spreading the gospel worldwide, faster than Dewey could ever imagine a century ago. So I encourage you all to blog on. Share your knowledge and curiosities with others around you; assist your colleagues in building a more critical mouse-trap; challenge your professors to think differently about how they teach and learn.

As Downes notes, learning and living are merging: The challenge will not be in how to learn, but in how to use learning to create something more, to communicate. In essence, learning is all about communicating, something large universities struggle with. The university of the future will need to tear down the walls that currently envelop educators. And educators themselves will need to become active participants in a collaborative/inquiry environment that supports critical reflection and social action.

Until then, I believe that E-Learning 2.0 will be viewed by many in academia as a passing trend, another educational fad. And I believe it is our duty as educators to not let that happen.