Do you remember eLearning?
Back in 2000, the European Union launched its “eLearning action plan” to enhance the use of “technology serving lifelong learning”. By adding an ‘e’ to learning, we thought we could invent a brand new vision for learning. But it didn’t happen. Technology was simply not good enough, and our minds not ready. We ended up creating more, or less, user-friendly online training courses that were commercialised by training companies as a substitute for traditional courses. But learning remained mostly untouched, still based on a top-down relationship between teacher and learners. The classroom — even in its virtual definition — was still based on a conventional concept well described by Sir Ken Robinson in his popular TED conference.
We desperately needed a vision for the future of learning. Said another way, we had to “open up education” and get rid of the ‘e’!