I saw an interesting post by Mark Oehlert "Learning 2.0" and why that name suddenly is torquing me off... Mark's main complaint and one that I've seen voiced before is that people are not really learning differently:
I really don't believe that humans are learning differently - meaning, I think we are constituting memories, adapting behavior, practicing new skills - those activities that typically make up learning from the human standpoint - in much the same way as we have for hundreds if not thousands of years. I'm talking about our internal processes.
This is pretty much what was discussed in New Way of Learning and the general answer was that it's doubtful that there's really a new way of learning, but there certainly are many related metacognitive tools and methods that have changed and that we need to adapt.
Still, I believe the crux of Mark's concern and where the disagreement comes …
So there is no "Learning 2.0" from the learners' view - there could well be "Instruction 2.0" or "Teaching 2.0" but think about what is really different there - those last two (and you could throw in Government 2.0, Education 2.0) address organizations and not learners and this gets to my second bothersome point about "Learning 2.0."
Let's put the burden on us and not on the learner.
That's exactly it. We aren't really talking about the learning itself, but rather the way in which we support learning within an organization. What is the role of the Learning Professional? And I would claim that there's a fairly substantial change when you go from eLearning 1.0 to eLearning 2.0 solutions.
The reason you can't call it "Instruction 2.0" or "Teaching 2.0" is that the very point of eLearning 2.0 is that it's learner driven. We are no longer in charge. We take a supportive role. We create an environment. We foster. We coach.
To do this, it requires a considerably different mindset. It makes sense for us to discuss this as 2.0 just to indicate that there's this substantial shift.
Certainly this has been debated quite a bit (see Is eLearning 2.0 Meaningful? - You Vote and 2.0 and Interesting Times). But I think the discussion is over. We've come to accept that we'll use the 2.0 moniker.
Mark – how about if we agree that if your Oregon State Beavers go down to defeat this weekend, we'll just agree that it's okay to use the terms Learning 2.0 and eLearning 2.0?
