Aaron Carpenter's blog

E Learning has much to offer the world: The ability to learn and teach from all over the globe to an equally diverse group of students cannot be overlooked. Current technology and ones yet to be created have made it easier for everyone to exchange ideas in a quick and seamless fashion. In our coursework we rely heavily upon Wiki-based teaching tools.

However efficient it all may be, there is still something missing: spontaneity. This is the one area that is sorely lacking. With most of the conversations being asynchronous in nature it is all too easy for the learners to take a much longer look at an issue than they would be able to in a classroom.  Instead of simply and quickly voicing an opinion we have made it a point to double check what we were going to say with Wikipedia first. We are no longer trusting our minds and gut instinct: instead we trust Google and other sources before we dare to speak.

We are surrounded by more information than we know what to do with. The total quantity of it is staggering, and if we rely upon it for everything instead of trusting our minds we will reach a point where we will no longer be capable of making decisions. If we end up micromanaging every decision from large to small we will slow down progress instead of speeding it up.

So how can we solve this problem as learning designers? How can we design course curriculums to regain that instant insightfulness that is lacking? How can we inject a much-needed dose of spontaneity into the online discussion? These are the questions we need to ask now while E Learning is still in its infancy.