eLearning Magazine September 8 Article Review

I was reading through my email and found one from The eLearning Guild which I joined last week. While I was going through the mail I stumbled across this weeks article titled Why e-Learning 2.0? So I proceeded to read the article and was very interested in the authors precisness about technology.

The article started off explaining how with Web 1.0 the idea was simply to connect people to the internet to retrieve content. Michele Martin and Sanjay Parker then explain that with the advent of Web 2.0 the paradigm shifted to not only connect people to the content but to also allow collaboration of the content over the internet. The authors then when onto explain how this shift creates a positive affect on e-Learning. The article compares and contrasts the traditional e-Learning style, known as learning 1.0, and the new phenomonum called e-Learning 2.0. In their comparison, Martin and Parker state that because of the social networking and engagement of the learner, learning is now on a newer level.

The social media tools (i.e. Facebook, LinkedIn, WikiPedia, etc.) allow the learner not only engage in the learning experience locally but more importantly globally. Martin and Parker cited how some companies such as software giant Serena, GE, and Ernest & Young LLP are tapping into the web and e-leaarning 2.0 paradigm. They stated that these compaines are using blogs, wikis, podcasts, and RSS feeds for their employees and even in the recruiting effort.

Serena is the maker of Ning, another social networking site that also allows coompanies to pay a monthly fee to quiet the ads and run behind a compaines firewall.

The other neat piece of the article was their Top Five list of reasons to adopt e-Learning 2.0:

1. Guild members currently using e-Learning 2.0
   are reporting that it works
2. The Digital Natives are entering the workforce
   and they're expecting social media
3. Barriers to entry and experimentation are low
4. Re-purposed content is cost effective
5. Scary thought for the day … your competitors,
   customers, and employees are already using
   these tools.

The article then continued by detailing each of the five reasons to adopt e-Learning 2.0. Finally in the end of the article they spoke about the concerns for this new technology. While Martin and Parker pointed out that the reasons usually center around legal, regulatory, or confidentiality, I found it interesting that they alikened these concerns to water cooler talk, sending messages through email, or just simply handing over documents. If we really think about this for a moment, the 2.0 technology medium is more safe than those mentioned above. At the very least companies can control what is being shared. They pointed out that government agencies such as CIA , DIA, and FBI have all implemented social media tools for their employees.

It will be interesting to see how fast companies, like mine, adopt e-Learning 2.0. You can access the article at http://www.elearningguild.com/