E-learning is dead, long live E-learning. We say this because E-learning has become so prevalent in today’s society, it has overwhelmingly bridged the gap between work-based learning and traditional classroom courses to offer the ultimate learning experience.
What in essence is thought of as E-learning or Social Learning is actually being practised each and every day through face-to-face teaching.
There are several ways in which this has happened:
Social Media Tools
Sites such as Youtube, Facebook and Twitter are used in classrooms and seminars as well as to engage learners in the workplace.
Blogs
No longer are blogs confined as do-at-home ditties; they’re now used in classrooms as personal web spaces to produce and submit work and creative ideas.
Presentations
Sites such as SlideShare can host presentations which are often used in lectures. Students will then log-on at home to go over the presentations again – probably as they were too busy texting during the initial display!
Recordings
Tools such as Echo360 and Camtasia help us record lectures to keep a record of both the content but also to make it available for recap and revision purposes – this was originally used as the only way to deliver the materials to online learners.
Email and More
Learners have always used email to contact teaching staff, as well as discussion boards and forums for support, subject-specific activities, FAQs and more. These days, online and face-to-face students use the same tools.
These are all tools and activities that were once used solely to engage and encourage geographically-disparate learners, but are now being used increasingly for corporate learning initiatives, often in a way that can increase the quality of teacher-contact time the learners have.