E-Learning

E-learning, or electronic-learning, is training carried over the World Wide Web. It can also mean training carried over an intranet inside a company. Because Web content is digital in nature, a large array of prebuilt training—ranging from Webcasts, CD-ROM, and CBT to streaming media—are all grist for e-learning's mill.

The two great advantages of e-learning are that (1) its content can be centrally updated (on a server), and (2) it can track learners' activities (in a database). In practical terms this means the realization of a host of dreams that have been harbored by trainers for years, but that could never be realized in a pre-Web world. These include: Level 3 evaluation (noting whether training transferred to the job), Level 4 evaluation (did the training carry a financial payback), and tracking student progress through a curriculum (classroom, online, or self-study) by means of a dynamic transcript. Such transcripts can log not only classes attended and self-studies completed, but can also track scores on tests and certifications, and any informal learning, coaching, or mentoring sessions that have been recorded as well. E-learning does not replace classrooms or self-studies, but augments these, "blending" them with what the Web does best: providing online pretests and post-tests, information lookups, post-course refreshers, and collaborative learning communities. However, just as with any delivery medium, e-learning must be constructed around sound instructional design principles, and tied into business objectives.

Prediction: The Medium Will Disappear

"The medium is the message" is the slogan of any new technology on the rise, loudly and boisterously hyping itself. When it has matured, however, the medium disappears into the background, and the message shifts to center stage. We no longer speak of "book" learning, for instance. And thus in the course of time, e-learning will also shed its "e" and become just plain "learning." At that point, we will know that e-learning has grown up.

Synchronous vs. Asynchronous Courses

Synchronous courses are live Webcasts (Latin and Greek: synchronos: "in simultaneous time").

Asynchronous courses are recorded Web-casts or regular courses (Latin and Greek: asynchronos: "out of time").

Fastpaths

1997	Brandon Hall: The Web-Based Training Cookbook.
2001	Roger Schank: Designing World-Class E-Learning.
2001	Marc Rosenberg: E-Learning: Strategies for Delivering Knowledge in the Digital Age.
2002	Allison Rossett (ed.): ASTD E-Learning Handbook: Best Practices, Strategies, and Case Studies for an Emerging Field.
2002	Ruth Clark and Richard Mayer: E-Learning and the Science of Instruction.
2003	George Piskurich (ed.): The AMA Handbook of E-Learning.

See also Electronic Performance Support Systems (EPSS) Extreme Learning Systems The Web Model: Dimension 7