The future of e-learning is social...


I don't rant often...or rather I hope I don't rant often, however I think this will be a a ranting post. I was reading Jane's e-learning blog, specifically a post on how the future of e-learning is social.

ALL learning is social, at least all the learning had in a school, with an instructor and other students in the room. Recently I keep hearing about Web 2.0 and social learning and it amazes me to no end that social learning is the new cool thing and that is the future of learning. Social Learning is new now just like bell-bottoms and ripped jeans are new now - i.e. they are not new people! Just because YOU did not know about it doesn't mean it did not exist prior to you thinking about it. New technology is just allowing us to expand out social reach outside of the space/time constraint of meeting in class.

Now I have to say this, this is not a critique of Jane. I found her presentation quite interesting and useful. The critique is directed toward those individuals who think that learning (any kind of learning) is not social and that "social learning" will solve all of our learning and performance problems.

OK, end rant - hopefully it wasn't that bad.

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