dokeos

At Dokeos, we provide e-learning consulting based on the analysis of experience and good practices.

Frequently, our clients ask us what e-learning means and what can be considered true e-learning. Here is an attempt to define things the empirical way and propose a synthetic table of possible online learning activities. The article was originally published on Knol. 

Some observations

Since internet and multimedia boomed in the nineties, intellectual practice has evolved. People:

1. learn alone in online courses or CD-Roms through a combination of theory and exercises;
2. collaborate remotely on Wikipedia to write a collective paper on a dedicated topic;
3. alternate face-to-face contacts and online interaction with a trainer or coach;
4. read online tutorials and practice alone;
5. look for the answer to their questions in Google®;
6. write blogs and try to clarify their own mind with the help third party comments;
7. practice guitar by imitating Youtube® guitar experts videos;
8. participate in sophisticated online training scenarios that take place in Learning Management Systems (LMS) where a coach accesses tracking data on their progress and helps them improve their skills through relevant feedback;
9. play video games, serious games, online games, individually or collectively;
10. send their productions to remote colleagues by email and expect feedback and corrections from them using for instance Ms-Word or Openoffice correction features;
11. listen to corporate management conferences podcasts on their mobile phone in the train.

Although in variable extension, all these activities can be described as e-learning because they provide some learning experience through CD-Roms or internet or telephones or any electronic device. 

Deeper analysis

Let's try to analyse things deeper.

(1) reminds us that e-learning is not necessarily an online activity;
(2) informs us that e-learning can exist even if no dedicated course content was developed;
(3) suggests that e-learning does not mean nobody sees nobody;
(4) says that e-learning can exist when theory is online and practice is offline (and we can reasonably imagine the reverse situation);
(5) describes something pretty obvious : many of us learn everyday in Google® without even noticing it or calling it learning;
(6) insists on the fact learning can be particularly effective when the learner is invited to produce something;
(7) illustrates a very primitive way of learning : by imitation (didn't Bach learn music by copying Vivaldi scores?);
(8) is considered by some the most accomplished  e-learning method;
(9) deals with how children learn first, but does not provide us with a criteria of what is the educative part in a game;
(10) alludes to a common intellectual activity in most professional organisations and points out that there is most often some learning in it;
(11) gives an example of m-learning or mobile learning that we can decide to include in the generic name e-learning.

What e-learning is not

When an activity belongs to "e-" but not to "learning" or belongs to "learning" but not to "e-", it should not be considered as e-learning.

E means electronic. Internet-based, CD-Rom based, telephone-based, video-based learning activities should all be considered as e-learning. Today, the vast majority of e-learning takes place on the web through a web browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari...).

Learning is a little bit more difficult to define. What is the difference between learning and reading, for instance? Don't we say "John reads in Oxford" for "John is a student at the Oxford university"? When I read the news, am I learning or am I just grasping some new information? To start with a simple approach, let's suppose we all are behaviorists and consider that learning means become able to do something new. The behaviorist minimal psychology framework suggest that any information is directly or indirectly connected to the project of an action and implies that the learning process includes:

1. information on how to do womething but also
2. practice opportunities and
3. feedback

We get (1) bits of information on how to do something. We are granted (2) with the opportunity to act so as to practice and improve on these skills. And somebody or "something automatic" (a machine) tells us (3) whether the skills are acquired or not.

This definition excludes from e-learning all activities where there is mainly information: reading, searching, viewing, listening.

Of course the criteria is a difficult one as a certain part of the intellectual activity is not immediately visible. Some will search Google and read only. Some others, with the same search information, will take notes, summarise, draw a mindmap, produce something, explain to others etc.

Another difficulty is that some of us will not consider themselves as behaviorists. I think however that saying "I am not a behaviorist" means "I am more than a behaviorist" but it does not necessarily mean you do not accept this minimal framework.

A third problem of the behaviorist definition is that it does not give a clear status to intellectual skills like knowing History or becoming wise.

E-learning is about activities and feedback

But the advantage of the behaviorist definition is that it focuses on activities and feedback, hence suggesting a method for e-learning design. Truth is seldom simple but only simple ideas are usable.

Let's consider e-learning from the author's perspective. Publishing slides, PDF e-books, encyclopaedia articles does not mean I produce e-learning, as the criteria for e-learning does not lie in the resources I publish but in the activities I organise for the learners around these resources. E-learning starts when I switch from "I published my course online" to "my course takes place online".

Designing relevant activities to drive learners from passive reading, viewing or listening to dynamically improving their skills is not an easy job. I must first be able to describe the objectives of the course in terms of action. If I train on meeting management, I am not allowed to define my objectives by "they whould know what meeting management is" or they would "get familiar with meeting management", because "knowing" is a mental skill : I cannot check it, I cannot propose activities to improve that, I cannot give feedback on how they know it. I should better describe things this way : "they should be able to list main meeting management theories" (because listing is an action and I can build activities with that) or probably "they should be able to manage a meeting" (and then imagine a roleplay game or any real-life based situation to practice).

If I train on how to pilot a plane, multiple choice is not an option. Just because I would not fly in a plane whose pilot learned this way. He would not get the skills. The relevant activity here will probably be closer to pilot a flight simulator. And the feedback should be on how the learner piloted the flight simulator: providing information on why he "crashed" the plane and how to avoid such a mistake.

Instructional design

How will we design the relevant activity in a course like:

1. Meeting management;
2. History of Art;
3. English as a second language?

One might suggest that the relevant activities should be as close as possible to real-life situations:

(1) might lead to some group activities or roleplay.
(2) might include interpretation questions, categorizing questions, memory questions.
(3) might provide the learner with listening comprehensionss, fill-in the gaps etc.

The topic, but also the level of the audience and the available media and e-learning softwares will help the e-learning author design the relevant questions.

In the following table, we attempt to formalize a table of some 40 possible activities types. There are certainly much more than that and the organization could be different. Please consider this as a draft proposal for discussion.

The 8 lines go from the most closed types of questions (easier for automatic correction) to the most open ones (the most open ones can only be corrected manually by the coach).

The 5 columns organize activities from the most simple to the most complex ones (although this classification remains vague and subjective). Typically, e-learning designers would consider this table and decide for a cell when building an activity for a dedicated learning topic.

 Some clarifications :

• Alternate choice means multiple choice with 2 options
• Certainty degree means : a multiple choice or true/false + a subsidiary question "How much are you sure?"
• Yes/no with explanation combines two questions in one : "Yes because of A", "Yes because of B", "No because of C", "No because of A".
• Categorizing means Matching where one of the two sets contains less elements than the other.
• Sequencing is a matching where elements of the first set are named "first step", "second step", third step"
• Fill-in-form is similar to Fill-in-blanks but adds some graphical design to look like an existing form so as to simulate a real-life situation
• Lab simulation can be a Flash animation whose behaviour changes when user modifies some settings
• Delineate zones on an image is noticeably relevant in medicine : delineate a cancer on a radiography for instance. Consider also : mechanics, history of art, and more generally all disciplines dealing with visual supports

Conclusion

E-learning is a rich and complex field of activity. The most complex part of e-learning is due to the fact that "learning" is something complex, whether "e" or not.

The name for it suggests that the person who learns, "the learner", is at the center of the process. Otherwise we would call it "e-teaching". Only the learner can decide to enter e-learning activities.

And it is not obvious that the most sophisticated e-learning designs produce the most effective learning (consider how effective can be the simple fact that you imitate somebody playing your favourite guitar tune on Youtube).

However, one should keep in mind that "e" resources do not lead to learning if there is no associated and relevant practice for which at least some feedback is available somewhere, whether online or not (consider how effective can be the fact that my sister tells me whether my interpretation of the guitar tune watched on Youtube is "good" and what she suggests I should improve, whether she is a guitar expert or not).