Elearning 2.0 is About People

If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve probably heard and read a lot about Web 2.0. If you’re an e-learning professional, you’ve probably also read a lot about Elearning 2.0. So what’s with all this 2.0 stuff? It’s actually quite a bit simpler than you might think.

With 9/11 as a backdrop, Brent sums it up best in this post:

“For some reason we like everthing to be very black and white, IF this, THEN do this(explicit knowledge, right!). Life and Learning is not that clean. It’s messy. Learning is messy. Learning isn’t about our perfect little instructionally sound systems, and our technologies. eLearning1.0 took us down that path and it was wrong let’s face it…WE, WERE, WRONG! Web2.0 technologies bring us full circle…its back to being about the people. People connecting, people communicating, people collaborating, people sharing, people being creative and publishing freely for the world. It’s what the internet was supposed to be.

“So stop thinking about Learning2.0 as a new toolset…It’s so not about that! Learning2.0 is about people. The tools simply allow us to do what we do best…and that’s connecting with other people to support, share, and learn with each other.”

Got it? When you hear about Anything 2.0, think about you. It’s about you creating the content, you helping your colleagues and friends learn, and you contributing to the shared knowledge of the world.

We’ve already seen this model in practice during the past 7 months with the hugely successful Articulate Community Forums. You’re helping each other to solve problems and to learn. This is Web 2.0. This is Elearning 2.0.

Sure, there are underlying technologies that make all this possible — the server, the software, the RSS feeds — but it’s the people who make it succeed. And it’s up to the software and the technology to make the experience as transparent to the people as possible.

Welcome to the future of sharing knowledge, the free (digital) press, and self-publishing, just as John Milton argued for 362 years ago and would have wanted it to be. He’d be pleased.

“Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making.”
- John Milton
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