Thursday, June 23, 2011

E-Learning Challenges of Old and the Way Forward


SLOWING BUT GROWING
The evolution of e-learning was a big change for both learners and educators. It caught the fancy of people across the board, although, initially, e-learning was a bigger hit in the corporate training world. K-12 was slow to adopt it but has caught up since. In higher education too, there was a resistance in the beginning. Things are changing though. Almost 100 percent of universities have a Web presence, conducting some or most part of its business online.  Some recent trends show there is an overwhelming demand for e-learning in schools from students, parents and educators alike. Not to be left behind, the governments across the world are focused on the initiative. So despite untimely obituaries of e-learning that continue to be written in some quarters, it continues to grow. However, the inherent problems and changing socio-technological environment have taken some sheen off it.  

CHALLENGES ABOUND
Despite the fact that it is still growing, e-learning of 2011 and beyond is not and will not be the same as e-learning of the 1990s. If static courses with an overload of multimedia elements dominated most of the ‘90s, the trend now is clearly towards collaboration with social networking tools, telephony and various kinds of computing devices coming together in a way that the world had never experienced before.
In between, there was a time when the Learning Management System (LMS) reigned supreme. However, a sizable majority of LMS buyers have shown dissatisfaction with the mammoth applications they bought and fault the LMS with lack of alignment with the business needs and seamless integration. LMS providers went into overdrive to add collaborative features as open source technologies helped free LMSs enter the scene, which were lighter and easier to use. Jury is still out if this has worked and whether or not LMS players will regain the status they once enjoyed.
The trend of social computing and related technologies poses yet another challenge to formal “course”-driven e-learning. The heavy focus on treating content with unwanted multimedia decoration has often proved detrimental to learning. For example, simple features of an application were better left mentioned on the plain real estate of a screen rather than visualizing each bullet point as a conceptual graphic only because you could have graphical representations.  
Similarly, in the quest of making courses interactive, people tried complex animations to teach simple subject matter. Pre-assessments, post-assessments and practices were built in abundance in a course without really exploring if we could make learners aware of a few things without having to profusely test them on those things.
Thus, the necessity to have a good computer/Web-based “course” led to an overdose of multimedia elements and superfluous instructional design thrust. 

THE WAY FORWARD
Practitioners of e-learning need to seriously analyze their own space and changing technology around them where new-age publishing, the ability to curate, and collaboration offer a completely fresh set of paradigms to work with. The fixation with “course” is no longer tenable. This new approach should also be in “sync” with a completely different set of communication tools the new generation is growing up with.
New technologies allow people to work with content in a variety of unrestricted ways.  You can blog, use wiki, insert audio and video, and hyperlink. Learners, educators and experts can collaborate and dynamically structure and curate content in a single searchable environment. People looking for a certain type of content will always reach a structured body of evolving content from known sources. The cycle goes on, achieving the goal of learning as a continuous process.

Wednesday, June 8, 2011

India Erupts Against Corruption After Brutal Action on Nonviolent Resisters




The Indian anti-corruption activist Swami Ramdev started his hunger fast four days ago in Delhi. All was going fine. The Indian government agreed to most of his demands even before he started his fast, but it soon backtracked and negotiations failed.
  Suddenly, at midnight, more than 5000 Delhi police and rapid action force personnel were sent to Ramlila Grounds where the satyagraha was going on. They baton charged nonviolent protesters who were sleeping, used tear gas shells and imposed section 144 of the Indian penal code, which forbids unlawful assembly. They even forced media vans to leave the place. Ramdev later slammed the government and Delhi police, accusing them of conspiracy.
The police brutality on peaceful protesters has caused a great rage among people of India, and now satyagraha and marches are planned across whole of India to protest against the police action.
Facebook, Twitter (#ramlila#ramdev#satyagraha), YouTube and news sites are flooding with comments against the police action and TV media is telecasting the uprising live.
The situation is being compared to the emergency that was imposed on June 25th of 1975, when the government in power then used similar tactics to suppress an uprising against corruption. 35 years later, history seems to be repeating itself. The difference is tht this time the media (TV and social media) is much stronger, and correct information reaches the masses almost instantly, and digital activism empowers them to express and protest.

What has happened after June 4th?

Ramdev is continuing his fast from his headquarters at Haridwar, since he is exiled from Delhi and is barred from entering the capital for the next 15 days (till 20th June). He has appealed to all his followers to continue nationwide protest in a peaceful manner following Gandhian means.
A peaceful movement by spiritual leaders and civil society is being hijacked by opposition political parties as they plan to add fuel to the fire by holding symbolic fasts across the country.
Baba Ramdev released a booklet to educate people about the cause titled “Regaining Bharat(India) of Our Dreams”, you may read the English translation of the free e-book here.

Is this the start of a major uprising of people against an elected government in world's largest democracy? What do you think?