I’ve been asked several times on what eLearning 2.0 is, more recently I’ve been asked how to implement 2.0 in to an already packed and developed VLE…as if it were a matter of just a little 2.0 touch…virtual campus à la 2.0 as the final stage of a given eLearning strategy.
I think LMS and LCMS are completely outdated, the way they’re conceived and designed. They’re closed and therefore safe areas for educational institutions…safety here understood as everything under control, their control…not the learning community’s.
I’ve realized there’s a lot to be done about authentic 2.0 compliant LMSes. So far, as this insightful slideshare by one of my faves, Bryan Alexander, states:
“Is web 2.0 in most LMSes?
- Microcontent…yes
- Social networking…somewhat
- Open content, services…not really”
Exactly, eLearning 2.0 is not about allowing teachers or students to set up their own blog within the VLE, or about inserting images from Flickr or videos from YouTube or others…That’s ok, but that’s just an anecdotic stance towards what it could be a real shift within eLearning. Let’s say that allowing 2.0 microcontent should be taken for granted.
A 2.0 eLearning ecology is about mashing up the LMS, from code to content. eLearning 2.0 should be developed upon the following concepts, as Michael Feldstein Glen Moriarty (CEO of NIXTY) puts it best -a MUST read in order to understand why eLearning 2.0 is so different from eLearning 1.0-):
+
+ 
This approach would foster and allow the eLearning 2.0 pedagogies:
- Constructivism + connectivism
So far, it’s been said/heard ad nauseam that our approach is constructivist, that’s learner-centered, etc. Any reality check will prove how misleading and fallacious those statements are, the learner is not at the center, they just receive the information, which is obviously learner-oriented (obvious because we are addressing to learners and not to, let’s say, football players). eReading and, more recently, eWatching.
eLearning 2.0 to be considered as such should implement those technologies that foster collective research, problem-based learning, game-based learning (virtual reality platforms such as SUN’s MPK20 could have a say on this), group writing, P2P file sharing, CC-licensed content, and anything that turns the learner into a prosumer (of course, teacher training into 2.0 philosophies is essential, but that’s food for other post).
I like the concept of ’social object’ (as seen in B. Alexander’s slideshow): since social networks consist of people who connect to each other around/by a shared object -which is the outcome of a shared interest-, then the object becomes ’social’. Then, with eLearning 2.0, we are moving from objects uploaded by teachers to social objects uploaded and shared and tagged by the learning community (learners+teachers+administrators).
I recommend you to watch/listen to D. Wiley on “Openness, Localization and the Future of Learning Objects“, a must for all those guys from the eLearning IT edge.
Is there any 2.0 LMS?
Well, I’m waiting for the beta invitation from Nixty, I wonder if some of the Universities I happen to be related with would shift to a platform like this or would at least replicate it. As a matter of fact, these educational institutions’s VLEs are running on Sakai…but there’s still some hope even with Sakai. Here you have some ideas on how to make it social, mashable and 2.0 (Ian Boston from the University of Cambridge).
I also found out that a Spanish company called DiCampus launched Wikos:
Wikos lms es un sistema de formación online que está concebido como una ambiciosa apuesta por el aprendizaje basado en casos, la construcción de conocimiento cooperativo y la utilización de las redes sociales como elemento clave en el proceso formativo online. Wikos lms permite al usuario un aprendizaje intuitivo, dinámico e interactivo, sobre los pilares de la estandarización, la accesibilidad Web, la usabilidad y la utilización de funcionalidades 2.0 como elemento base del aprendizaje.
However, I have the feeling that they just focused on the first (and granted) part of eLearning 2.0: the microcontent stage because they seem to be missing the most important of the 2.0 movement (call it 2.0 or 3.0 or you name it!): it’s not a thing, it’s an attitude, it’s not just about 2.0 technologies but about free and open services, content and knowledge…and I wonder: where’s the open and free service here? They should have based their business model on an open source and free 2.0 LMS and then, the word-of-mouth and the platform value would have worked their way out. Oops, missed chance.
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14 Comments
Thanks for the mention of NIXTY and for linking to my article on e-Literate. I’m sorry you haven’t yet received the beta invite. We, of course, are still programming. I hope to get it to you soon. I’ll be in touch with more info in the near future.
@Glen Moriarty: Hi Glen, M. Feldstein is the editor, not the author! Fortunately with 2.0 technologies you can change/correct mistakes in a blink of an eye (or 2)…So please accept my apologies!
Indeed, I can’t wait to see Nixty. Is it going to be an open source 2.0 LMS we can download and install in our own servers, or a free software as a service running on your servers?
Thanks for commenting!
No worries! There will actually be a full article out on that topic in a few months. I’ll be sure to email you when it is ready. The whole journal should really be a good read. Michael Feldstein is really sharp and has done a nice job of combining several voices/perspectives on distributed learning.
NIXTY will be hosted on our servers and will be a free SaaS running on our servers. People will have the opportunity to purchase an appliance (the code on a box) if they like, but the network effects make it much more attractive to use it on our platform.
Thanks again for the enthusiasm! If we can all collaborate, I think we’ll go along way towards solving some of the major educational problems that we currently face.
@Glen Moriarty: “Wait & see”…ok. But what’s your SOA model?
Nineties’ “we’ll build it and they’ll come” or
2.0’s “let them come and help us build it”?
A little bit of both : ). We’ve been doing a lot of research/consultation in this space for a couple of years (both for our original company http://www.scholar360.com and now for NIXTY). We are developing the core pieces, but will also be OpenSocial compliant so other apps can be developed on the platform.
The only problem I seem to find (coming from the ‘control-freak’ environment of universities…at least here in Europe/Spain) is that they want free open source LMS they can tweak and customize, that’s why Moodle is so famous. It gave many institutions, schools, colleges, etc. the possibility of setting up an online campus according to their needs (or some of the needs, since Moodle doesn’t address the elearning 2.0 as it should either) for free -if we don’t take into account all the IT infrastructure needed to manage the platform-. Sakai or Moodle, those are their options…and people demanding a complete make-over -I count myself among them- towards 2.0 and open 2.0, can’t do nothing about it.
We’ll see, then…
Very good points. Thank you for sharing them. We definitely need to think more on our strategy for the clients in the situation you’ve addressed. The appliance scenario would work for them…IF…they thought the platform brought enough value to them. Our sense is that for most Moodle users who have technical expertise and are far along the road in implementation, NIXTY just simply won’t be attractive. For others, however, those who have less technical expertise, will likely find NIXTY attractive. We want to be supportive of Moodlers. We need to brainstorm a bit more as to how we can be more helpful.
This LMS-Web 2.0 connection is one of the major issues for our work.
And thank you for the link!
@Bryan Alexander: You’re very welcome Bryan, but thank YOU for those slides.
And how do you combine Moodle-Sakai with a web 2.0 approach to learner’s prosumerism?
[...] speeches: we are control dreamers, we dream of having everything under control. In this case, remember, institutional safety. eLearning 1.0 is centripetal…eLearning 2.0 is centrifugal, as web 2.0 [...]
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Hola Dolors,
Muchas gracias! La verdad es que debo estar pasando algún proceso de reactivación neuronal sobre el tema o que algunas cosas que he visto o estoy viendo me han espoleado, pero creo que tenemos que hacer algo y habría que hacer mucho ruido con esto, porque creo que el eLearning va por un lado y la realidad por otro.
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