What really bugs me about "E-Learning 2.0"

So my previous post on must have struck a nerve.

And while I take no offense (ironically, that is my current job title on business card, which I must change when I get new ones, says "training specialist." But I guess I'm supposed to be offended that Dr. Karrer doesn't consider me a training specialist.

saw a post by Matthew Franz - where he tells us - I don't get e-learning 2.0 - and it made me wonder if Franz is a training specialist - who's not looking at more than training as a model for learning.

But forget about that...

The key issue is whether learning|teaching|training|education|instruction are fundamentally altered by these supercool "2.0" technologies like wikis?

When I taught Reading & Texas History to 7th & 8th graders, in both subjects focusing on critical thinking skills and using techniques like the Socratic seminars espoused by folks like Mortimer Adler, that was definitely education. When I taught TCP/IP Security and Open Source network security tools that was purely training (clearly more worthy, if less lucrative) as is the current courses I teach on Tenable products.

I'd like to think there is a bit of education in some of the training I teach. I'd also like to think that maybe reading Paulo Freire makes me a better able to teach about vulnerability and compliance management and allow security auditors to name the pain of dealing with obtuse requirements.

I admit there is no small amount of irony that principles developed for teaching literacy to Brazilian peasants might be applicable to teaching for-profit courses to folks who have (or aspire to have) six figure salaries, but I digress.

The problem I have with this concept of "eLearning 2.0" and all the hype about blogs and wikis (both of which I know and love and one of which I do use in my ILT classes and in my own personal learning, MoinMoin Desktop Edition rules!) is that it seems yet another educational fad, another "gamechanger" marketed to teachers and trainers that does not fundamentally alter the equation. Why even adopt the lingo of 1.0/2.0?

How is a blog any more revolutionary (or fundamentally) different than Nancie Atwell's Reading-Writing workshop? Since I'm not a training specialist (but a security technologist and practitioner that happens to develop and deliver training and is current working developing an eLearning solution) I don't keep up with adult learning and instructional design as much as I should, but as a public school teacher and a student of the history of education that there are wave after wave of fads which are often mindlessly adopted by (or forced down the throat of) of teachers.

When I was a technology trainer, when I developed the first Internet use policy for my school down in Texas, when we evaluated proposals from the teaching staff on how they would integrate technology into their classrooms in the mid 1990s I heard the same sort of pie in the sky buzzwords that I see on these e-Learning 2.0.

When I taught history, I used collaborative writing software with my students back in the mid 1990s. These were MacLC II's with LocalTalk vs. AJAX and TCP/IP. And no, I don't see Google Documents as fundamentally revolutionary in the context of training or instruction--or at least no more revolutionary than outside the use of training. It is not wikis don't provide value they just don't provide any more value in the context of teaching and learning than in their "normal" use.

The hype about eLearning 2.0 smacks of another fad which does not fundamentally alter the effectiveness of teachers and the learning of students. I actually do think wikis are revolutionary and were a fundamental tool in my toolkit when I was a consultant. But I do not believe they are more revolutionary in the classroom than outside the classroom. Training and learning must adopt the tools and techniques of the workplace (and typically adopts these later than the workplace, right?). Congrats, trainers are able to keep up. Barely.

Even (as my coworkers would attest) though I'm a bit of a WikiZealot, I view the latest and greatest with suspicion. Just another buzzword just like "whole language" "reader response theory" that teachers will grudgingly adopt because they have to, because it is the new dominant paradigm.

Truth be told, my skepticism is probably also based on the fact that deep down I believe Learning (meaning instructor led training, although I obviously realize that learning does not require an instructor and was a big fan of collaborative learning and student-led learning) is always preferable to eLearning. It is just not always practical. eLearning is a cheap, but scalable, substitute for the real thing if the real thing cannot be had. This bias probably impacts my view of the discussion of the value of these technologies.