Back To Basics


Observers may be forgiven for thinking that the e-learning industry is in turmoil, with too many of its leading firms failing to make a profit, while their smaller colleagues struggle to stay alive at all. There have even been some cheeky comments about the quality of the e-learning that has been delivered to date. Should we be surprised? I say no, given the economic climate, ridiculously over-hyped expectations and a general lack of skills in the design and delivery of e-learning. In this final chapter, I argue that we have only just started to see the true potential for information and communication technology in education and training but that, by getting back to basics and doing the simple things well, we can still expect to see powerful results in the short term.

First the bad news

Readers in the UK will be aware that there are dangers in flying the ‘back to basics’ banner, as a certain ex-Prime Minister found to his cost when he realised that how hard it is to get rid of the taste of Currie. Nevertheless, working on the basis that lightening never strikes twice, the banner is about to be raised once again, this time as a rallying call to the increasingly depressed workers of the so-called e-learning industry and as an encouragement to those trainers for whom the term e-learning has become synonymous with the word ‘headache’.

In this review of the-learning market as it stands in 2003, it’s probably a good idea to get the bad news out of the way first. Let’s start with those market projections. Finally, IDC and others have had to admit that their forecasts for the e-learning market were unrealistic – the growth of the use of information and communication technology in education and training will come but nowhere near as fast as they thought. Now there’s a surprise. Did anyone – even those companies that floated in the dotcom boom on the back of these figures – ever really believe them? Did they conveniently forget that learning – e or otherwise – is not about systems but about people, and that people only change their behaviour when it suits them?

We have also seen some rather surprising declines in the fortunes of some of the ‘big names’ in the industry, some of whom are struggling to maintain their full Nasdaq listings. At the lower end of the market, listings are the least of the problem as many firms go out of business altogether. So why is this happening when e-learning is supposed to be on the up and up? Well, on the one hand, you have got tough economic conditions, where cash is tight and sales cycles lengthen. On the other, you have a natural shake-out as many new entrants to the market fail to find their place, whether that’s because they are not strong enough to be competitive or because their offerings simply fail to meet a real market need. We should remember that shake-outs are not uncommon, even in the most promising new industries. In the early 1900s there were hundreds of automobile manufacturers in the USA alone and now there is barely a handful. Clearly this is not a sign of a declining market, just a general sorting out. Consumers, of cars or learning management systems do need choice, but not from hundreds of alternatives. Before we leave the car analogy, e-learning enthusiasts should be encouraged to recall how commentators of the time warned us that ‘the motor car is a good idea, but it will never replace the horse’.

Further bad news has come in the shape of some rather unflattering comments about the quality of e-learning from the training profession, as reported in the survey conducted in the summer of 1992 by the European Training Village. Some 61% of respondents rated e-learning as only fair or poor on their not-so-happy sheet. Yes, a disappointing result and one that shows how lacking we still are in e-learning design and delivery skills. On the other hand, the training profession is not as well-positioned to judge as you might think – my own survey of 200 trainers this year shows that only a quarter have ever taken an e-learning course and most of those were on CD-ROM.




E-Learning's Greatest Hits
E-learnings Greatest Hits
ISBN: 0954590406
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2003
Pages: 198

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