e-Learning or i-Learning: Past, Present & Future

[piis]

Hi Red1,

Your University ERP System Project at SourceForge.net had drew interest in me (...though I'm not a technical person & don't know much about the technical stuff you guys talked about there). I would like to open a new thread (I've already done so anyway... ) to have further discussion on online learning, a topic that interest me a lot. I welcome all comments from everyone to enrich our knowledge in this field as I believe online learning is here to stay and it is a matter of whether we make it better or worse.

As a person who was on the ground of this field for three years, I think it would be interesting to tell people that online learning platform is most of the time much easier than what we thought. Though, the ease of it sometimes makes us felt that it is so difficult. As we go further from here, I will tell you guys more or perhaps you guys will realise it yourself.

As my first post, I would like to start the discussion on the first part of the topic above - 'e-Learning or i-Learning'. Well, online learning is always synonym with electronic learning or e-Learning, in short. But do you guys know that e-Learning started way back even before the Internet is popular among the mass. Try to reflect back into the early to mid nineties. With Microsoft's Windows 3.11 and Windows 95, CD-ROM was popular. Many publishers came out with educational CD-ROMs specially targeted to the school-going children as they believe interactive features of the computer will enhance children's learning ability. See what I mean? Back then, there wasn't much '.edu' yet.

As the technology advances, people found new ways to deliver knowledge, which are sometimes called education and training. These new ways include the use of the Internet. Only by now, people realised that computers are made of electronic components (so sad... ) and started the new term, 'e-Learning'. Same thing happens to banking system as well. When Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) was introduced, nobody actually called that e-banking. Only when transactions can be done through the Internet, the term 'e-banking' started to flourish.

What we should realise now is that we are already in the era of 'i'. We should use terms like 'i-Learning', 'i-Banking', 'i-Shopping', 'i-Payment' etc because we are not only using the 'e's but using the 'e's through the 'i'. And thrust me, the 'm' is coming very very soon.... But for the moment, let's keep our discussion to the 'i' though sometimes we might touch on the 'm'.

Till the next round, do keep an eye on the 'i'

[red1]

So, does your 'I' means Internet or Interactive?

Your writing is profund though and leaves me in deep thoughts. Looking forward to more insporation from you, Philip.

red1

[piis]

Well Red1, the 'i' I am referring to is the Internet. The 'i' for interactive started in the e-Learning era with the CD-ROMs. Those days, the interactivity was more on human computer interaction (HCI). But now with the Internet in the i-Learning era, human to human interactions (H2HI) across borders and oceans are made affordable. H2HI are here to stay even with the dawn of m-Learning era.

Allow me to go a little bit out of the topic... Recently I read about Wi-MAX. It is really interesting and I believe it will be part of the contributing factor to the 'm' era. For your information, if you have not already know, Wi-MAX is more like an extension of Wi-Fi where the coverage could go up to tens of kilometres.

Okay, let's go back to our discussion... to simplify the 'e-', 'i-', and 'm-' terms that I am using, they are as per below:
'e-' = electronic
'i-' = Internet
'm-' = mobile

Maybe for the future discussion on online learning, we shall use 'i-Learning'.

Cheers

[red1]

Hi Philip,
Your analysis is interesting. But for common consumption, there will be want of a common phrase to describe and explain the broader picture of such learning. Thus the E-Learning catch phrase still means all that u mentioned. Just that your deeper understanding gives me more appreciation of what it actually is. No i know that not all stones are alike.

By the way. i suggest that u continue at the http://sourceforge.net/projects/university open forum. Better now than later when u got too many stones to move

We got already a substantial powerful core technical team there and your participation and contribution will balance well into the subject domain expertise.

I hope u can address an issue on business model. You have heard of the ASP of application service providor model where people pay per use. It was a failure previously due to lack of access and lack of versatility of technology. Now its in a better situation. Do u think that can work for example E-Learning or ERP Apps?

red1

[piis]

Hi Red1,

Sorry for the late reply... I was on my holiday in my hometown. I went to Borneo Highland during the holiday. It's a place so isolated that there's basically almost no communication. There's only a phone or maybe more at the reception counter of the club house and there's no mobile phone coverage and of course no Internet as well. Well, it's a great place to get away from the city life and back to the nature. For your information, the location is at a hill very very (and I mean very very very) close to Kalimantan, Indonesia.

Well, on your advise, I'll continue the discussion of this subject in the other forum. Will register myself there soon.

See you there...