To enter this debate. I agree with market distortions happening and the failure of "e-learning" across the pond.
In my analysis the reason for this failure is the very nature of the medium of the net. Because it is at once universal, fairly asynchronous, and to many, invisible, without the technology, it is therefore rootless and lacks all "meaning" to users other than to those who make specialist pro-active use of it.
It is also not yet as ubiquitous and seamless as mobile phone technology. Without getting into any more debate about it - the government had high ideals and aspirations for curriculum online but the commercial pressures of many interest groups have hijacked what could have been a wonderful infrastructure.
Also the original plan behind curriculum online was to try and build a contextual information network - what we got instead was a watered down and cumbersome catalogue of thousands of pieces of software. We should have had RDF files, what we got was watered down semi-SCORM compliance which even the BBC knows isn't being ratified yet.
In the first instance they still don't get it about people and the net and they don't get it in a very big way.
I have said on many occasions that trying to sell software on Curriculum Online is like trying to drop a feather into the Grand Canyon and wait for an echo. All commercial firms recognise that the route to market, how to sell their product, is to meet people face to face, provide a solution to a real world problem and show them what the product can do to help. It doesn't sit there in a glass fish bowl in the ether - it's a pro-active person to person process often involving engaging with communities.
People will only engage in online learning if it is meaningful and compelling to them. In the first instance the technology infrastructure has to be so familiar to them that it is easy and mundane to use. They shouldn't have to feel like a technological immigrant. Once that infrastructure is in place and there can be lots of inducements to make that happen in terms of taxation and original thinking to open up new markets then and only then can the next stage start to happen. That of effective pedagogy. Even e-learning courses as far back as the beginning of last year were spouting that distance learning can be effective - I think that maybe it might be if you are motivated enough to engage in that process to further your career in academia but in the real world people will ignore you or not engage unless there is something in it for them.
What is happening in schools at present in terms of kit is a kind of reverse Moore's Law. Unless new models for sustainability and clever workarounds for maintaining and upgrading equipment is put in place then there is going to be a "legacy implosion" any day now where kit and software isn't just kept in cupboards - it will fall apart and no-one will have the resources to mend it.
In the "real world" the networks are beginning to join up. I can send multimedia files to my computer via my phone wirelessly with bluetooth or straight to a web site with GPRS. I would love to have the facility to have a complete, location aware solution as well (it is available but is not being made available fully until 2005 because of legal and moral issues as well as the usual prohibitive pricing structures).
OK - even in a perfect world - if we had full connectivity and a brilliant backup and servicing infrastructure what else is needed?
Well - put quite simply, it's community, community, community
Technology will be transformational but it is entirely reliant on the people who use it for "buy in". So far people are trying to make a top down hierarchical model and we all know that with the net that that really doesn't work. I would argue that technology will lead to the deconstruction of certain types of schooling and encourage more competency based learning and competency based learning in teams or communities - in the long run these made transcend age and expertise. But let's rewind a bit.
How do you make an effective learning resource? Look at the BBC - they will roll out the DC [Digital Curriculum] in a couple of years and half the materials will be sub-contracted out to the usual suspects in terms of making online content. Now it doesn't take a crystal ball to see that the Gene Pool of teachers (whatever age) will immediately become depleted. Unless there is a mechanism for co-opting the best people to make effective learning communities and meaningful dissemination and training mechanisms, then it is going to be "son of electronic "educational" spawn " all over the web mark 2 - free maybe but entirely non-used once again.
Why? because the "knowledge economy" is without doubt the one thing that will transform society in the near future and the most valuable resource - the engine that drives that and always has - is a teacher. They are the most valuable asset in this whole enterprise and it is only within a local context that they are most effective. I have always argued for teachers to be at the very central process of making and managing e-learning materials. Commercial firms can bring the technical and marketing expertise but the teachers need to be given the central role in coming up with the ideas of what works. Never mind research, never mind market research, the only people who know what works are the people engaging with pupils every day of the week - the teachers themselves. However if the gene pool of people with vision and expertise is not to be depleted entirely at one fell swoop with the advent of the digital curriculum, then a mechanism for co-opting teachers to come up with the ideas and the infrastructure for managing them at a local level in terms of training and rollout needs to be put in place by the government otherwise you will get the equivalent of people making finely crafted learning objects and inserting them into bottles and throwing them out to sea. Great if you come across one now and again but otherwise...
I call these teachers "twilight people" - not because there is something of the night about them but, at present, they inhabit two worlds not belonging fully in either - the government needs to construct a mechanism and clearing house to co-opt and empower them and do it quickly. But can you see them having the vision?
Community context is the other factor in this whole equation - looking at the work going on in extended schools and the innovative solutions to traditional problems - how can we harness those solutions and make them available more widely? You cannot transplant solutions but you can graft people onto them to solve those problems based on experience. Again, we need the vision to see how new ways of using technology can be transformational.
To do this we need to construct "motors of change" and they have to be fairly dynamic mechanisms to effect that change. This is where real e-learning comes in. In order for it to be effective the whole set of learning criteria need to be examined in the light of technological development on one hand and community involvement on another. So how do you achieve this?
Well it really doesn't take much to see that to make an effective step change you don't introduce a reform model and target achieving mechanism all over again - you merely (merely!) target ring-fenced funding at deconstructing management systems to allow that change. First of all you put money into co-opting and creating management posts for people who will champion and sustain the use of technology within the current school framework. We need to get rid of the half-hearted pockets of amateurism that riddle the system and replace it with focused funding for management posts to do with implementing and sustaining technology. If that means giving more management clout to the ICT HOD then do it but make sure the remit for e-learning is enshrined in the recommended job spec.
Secondly create something akin to an AST post for teachers, whose expertise naturally lies with teaching, learning and creating resources that are effective within their community. Give them non-contact time and secondment to commercial firms to make mutually effective resources - it does work.
Lastly, consider the RBC's and their role in all this. I thought it very telling that the BBC did not invite one person from the RBC's to their recent launch of the DC? If they are going to drive the infrastructure but expect schools to meet the connectivity standards with their present budgets how is it all going to be squared in the long term?
The next five years will be very interesting for e-leaning...
