In January 1948, before three pistol shots put an end to his life, Gandhi had been on the political stage for more than fifty years. He head inspired two generations of India patriots, shaken an empire and sparked off a revolution which was to change the face of Africa and Asia. To millions of his own people, he was the Mahatma- the great soul- whose sacred glimpse was a reward in itself. By the end of 1947 he had lived down much of the suspicion, ridicule and opposition which he to face, when he first raised the banner of revolt against racial exclusiveness and imperial domination. His ideas, once dismissed as quaint and utopian ,had begun to strike answering chords in some of the finest minds in the world. "Generations to come, it may be", Einstein had said of Gandhi in July 1944, "will scarcely believe that such a one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon earth."
Though his life had been continual unfolding of an endless drama, Gandhi himself seemed the least dramatic of men. It would be difficult to imagine a man with fewer trappings of political eminence or with less of the popular image of a heroic figure. With his loin cloth, steel-rimmed glasses, rough sandals, a toothless smile and a voice which rarely rose above a whisper, he had a disarming humility. He used a stone instead of soap for his bath, wrote his letters on little bits of paper with little stumps of pencils which he could hardly hold between his fingers, shaved with a crude country razor and ate with a wooden spoon from a prisoner’s bowl. He was, if one majwere to use the famous words of the Buddha, a man who had "by rousing himself, by earnestness, by restraint and control, made for himself an island which on flood could overwhelm."
Gandhi’s, deepest strivings were spiritual, but he did not-as had been the custom in his country- retire to a cave in the Himalayas to seek his salvation. He carried his cave within him. He did not know, he said, any religion apart from human activity; the spiritual law did not work in a vacuum, but expressed itself through the ordinary activities of life. This aspiration to relate the spirit- not the forms-of religion to the problems of everyday life runs like a thread through Gandhi’s career; his uneventful childhood, the slow unfolding and the near- failure of his youth, reluctant plunge into the politics of Natal, the long, unequal struggle in South Africa, and the vicissitudes of the Indian struggle for freedom, which under his leadership was to culminate in a triumph not untinged with tragedy.
<http://www.mkgandhi.org/biography/index.htm

1847: Ralph Waldo Emerson, Poems.
1847: U.S. starts selling postage stamps.
1847: Honoré de Balzac's novel of deception, Cousin Bette
1847: The first Merriam-Webster dictionary.
1847: First use of telegraph as business tool.
1847: In England, Bakewell constructs a "copying telegraph."
1847: The Communist Manifesto, a pamphlet by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
1847: Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre is greeted with success.
1847: Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights is also immediately successful.
1847: William Makepeace Thackery's Vanity Fair is serialized.
1847: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's epic poem, "Evangeline."

1977: Columbus, Ohio, residents try 2-way cable experiment, QUBE.
1977: Oscars: Annie Hall, Richard Dreyfuss, Diane Keaton.
1977: Also at the movies: Star Wars, Saturday Night Fever, Looking for Mr. Goodbar.
1977: Foreign language film Oscar: Madame Rosa, France.
1977: Star Wars released in 46 theaters equipped with Dolby Stereo.
1977: Atari introduces a programmable home video game system in a cartridge.
1977: The Apple II microcomputer is a best seller. Also: Commodore Pet, TRS-80.
1977: Nobel Prize in Literature: Spanish poet Vicente Aleixandre.
1977: Disco music becomes the rage.
1977: John Cheever's novel, Falconer.
1977: Toronto Globe and Mail offers public access to newspaper text database.
1977: As a TV miniseries, Roots draws 130 million viewers over 8 nights.
1977: Stephen King's novel, The Shining, like Carrie, will become a hit movie.
1977: Nintendo begins to sell computer games.
1977: In Chicago, AT&T transmits telephone calls by fiber optics.

Steven Biko Dies:
Steven Biko, leader of South Africa's "Black Consciousness Movement," dies of severe head trauma on the stone floor of a prison cell in Pretoria. Six days earlier, he had suffered a major blow to his skull during a police interrogation in Port Elizabeth. Instead of receiving medical attention, he was chained spread-eagled to a window grill for 24 hours. On September 11, he was dumped, naked and shackled, on the floor of a police vehicle and driven 740 miles to Pretoria Central Prison. He died the next day. In announcing his death, South African authorities claimed Biko died after refusing food and water for a week in a hunger strike.

2002: 9 of 10 American school children have access to computers at home or school.
2002: "Googlewhacking" fad looks for odd word combinations in Internet sites.
2002: On the Web, creators of online journals, or "web logs," now "blog on."
2002: Comic book publishers join to publish views on 9/11 destruction.
2002: Found in a South African cave, 77,000-year-old geometric carvings on stones.

Pink Floyd Lyrics "Another Brick In The Wall (Part II)"We don't need no education.We don't need no thought control.No dark sarcasm in the classroom. Teacher, leave those kids alone.Hey, Teacher, leave those kids alone! All in all it's just another brick in the wall.All in all you're just another brick in the wall.We don't need no education.We don't need no thought control.No dark sarcasm in the classroom.Teachers, leave those kids alone.Hey, Teacher, leave those kids alone!All in all you're just another brick in the wall.All in all you're just another brick in the wall.

"In 30 years, Universities will be barren wastelands"

Universities in place for 500 years, are absolute foundation of all civilized societies. What could level a muti-billion dollar institution armor plated by intellectuals, legislators, academics, unions and political action committees. What kind of ‘Battleship’ would it take. Not even the atomic bomb could take down Stanford, Harvard or Chula, Thammasat or ABAC.
But it has been barely a decade since the Soviet Union turned from an invincible Evil Empire to just another humble ‘door knocker’ at IMF headquarters. From there lessons to learn surface:
Dispersed systems of business production, information gathering and decision making work much better than centrally commanded.
When competition is allowed, institutions bloated with fat arte easy pickings, especially when money is at stake.
Customers are smart and loyalty is thin
While the corporate threat is the most obvious, it is far from the most deadly. Soccer moms, educated by Internet savvy youngsters, are beginning to smell a rat. Nine dads out of ten concede that even with two household paychecks they can't manage the tuition from Podunk College, much less Purdue
And if it comes to the students, and they could choose between taking a course about the Pyramids from a noteworthy in Cairo vs. a nobody in Chicago; at half the price from Cairo. What choice is that?
And the biggest accelerator of all is also the best kept secret, at least for now. The market has yet to broadly perceive that courses offered by distance means are, most probably, better than those available on a face-to-face basis. When this fact becomes well established, as it will, the odds for slow moving universities to survive get much worse. The Internet will see to that.

BLOEMFONTEIN - Universities and technikons are slow in adapting to the challenges posed by Outcome Based Education (OBE) and are virtual dinosaurs when it comes to new teaching paradigms.
So says Prof. Merlyn Mehl, Chancellor of the Skiereiland Technicon.
‘There are huge bodies of knowledge available all over the place and yet university and technikon structure remains virtually unchanged. There’s very little logic left in the combination of courses. Courses are mostly just compiled to keep students busy,’ says Mehl. Mehl says universities have traditionally been the principal knowledge providers, but over the years there has been growth in knowledge outside these institutions as well.
‘Unless universities and technikons rethink the way in which they partner with other knowledge providers or producers, they are under very serious threat.’ Mehl says the problem with academic knowledge is that it is highly theoretical in nature.
<Official student newspaper of the University of Cape Town

For example on back office / administration of universities:
In the past, universities chose the best available solution for managing their data /communications - that meant a single-vendor solution based on proprietary software, running on a dedicated hardware platform, supported by a large, on-campus professional IT staff. That time has PASSED, but many of today's colleges and universities are still running their back office with these outdated, costly technologies and legacy systems or nothing at all.
With today's students using the latest technology tools as part of their daily lives, they approach their college experience with the expectation of open, multi-tiered administrative systems which integrate with other familiarly and developing technologies. They expect to access their information from a web browser whenever and wherever they want, at a click of a key or touch of a screen. Why should administrators expect anything less?

The existing methods and educational systems are not sufficient and are neglecting many aspects of today’s economy. We need to find a better way. A way that is adapted to a new world that gives a chance to new education

Dr. BK Passi has 30 years experience in educational research, training and consultancy in UN bodies, universities, government institutions and the corporate sector in Europe, USA, Canada, Russia and Asia. Born in an Indian village with humble beginnings, he became the creator of many ideas, founder of institutions and implementer of innovations. He became National Lecturer, Fullbright Scholar, and President AIAER. It is his original contributions that won him the Best Social Scientist Award India, World Award of Education -citations for Illustrious Scientific Career and Valuable Work in Benefit of Mankind- World Council Monterrey Mexico; and Recognition for Jose Vasconcelos Diploma. He is called “Father of Microteaching”. He has authored Passi Creativity Tests. He has managed institutions of higher education, researched in Futures Studies, Models-Teaching, Research Surveys, Benchmarking, Distance Education, ICT.
< ThinkTank member of Prasena. http://www.prasena.com/public/gld6drbkpassi.htm

Dr. S Passi has 30 years experience in behavioral science-related research, teaching and consulting with private and public sector organizations in India and abroad. Specialization in Creativity Assessment from Torrance Center for Creative Studies, Athens-USA found a natural outlet into her desire to delve deep into the learning-teaching-training career with all cadres of people. She conceptualized and created the Institute of Creative Thinking (ICT) in 1987, and has headed it since, organizing more than 600 programs in and out of India. She is on the advisory and governing bodies of various management and other boards. Her pursuit of research into the self has helped her to encompass initiating and implementing various research and development projects especially in the field of her interest – parapsychology/cognition and meditation. She is a Reiki master, yoga practitioner and a meditator. Currently, she is based in Bangkok as an expert in creative and critical thinking in King Mongkut’s University of Technology.

Dr BK Passi and Lukas O Ritzel on Thai TV channel 11 in Morning Talk from Thursday May 2nd in the daily MORNING TALK show – http://www.morningtalk.com/archives/02_may.html
Morning Talk: a daily television English talk show on Channel 11 which airs 08.30 - 09.00 hrs. every week day morning. Morning Talk is an Edutainment Program in English covering both News, Foreign Affairs, Tourism and Entertainment.
Morning Talk has been on air for 10 years and is considered to be the "Who's Who" and the "What's What" of Thailand, as presenter Dr. Valerie J. McKenzie interviews Thais and Foreigners from all walks of life. The viewing audience in Thailand extends from academics, decision-makers, business leaders, political, and the most respected and prominent families in Thailand to university students, business / office workers and middle class families. The program also reaches a large number of expatriates living and working in Thailand.

Thursday 2 May 2002; Talk 2 : Dr B.K. Passi, - Senior Expert in Thinking Skills, School of Industrial Education, King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi Mr. Lukas O Ritzel, - Infostructure Director - Prasena"Creative Thinking for Promoting Quality Education“
http://www.prasena.com/public/gld6drbkpassi.htm
http://www.prasena.com/public/gld6lor.htm

"Winners don't do different Things, they Do Things Differently"
Shiv Khera is the founder of Qualified Learning Systems Inc. USA. An Educator, Motivator, Business Consultant, much sought-after Speaker and successful Entrepreneur, Shiv wears many hats.
He has been recognized as a "Louis Marchesi Fellow" by the Round Table Foundation. Shiv has appeared in several magazines and on numerous television and radio shows internationally.
His international bestseller 'You Can Win' & his seminar, Blueprint for Success, inspire people & help them realize their true potential. His dynamic message is widely received by the opposite sides of the globe, from the US to Singapore. His common sense and value based approach have motivated thousands to re-evaluate their attitudes. His 25 years of research and experience have helped people on their paths of personal growth and fulfillment.
<http://shivkhera.com/

Can Virtualization be the solution? This characteristic of the Cybernetic Revolution qualifies the tendency of any entity / activity / technology to function in virtual reality, that is in such a way that performance does not require physical presence

<http://www.prasena.com/public/ematrix.html
vir·tu·al   Pronunciation Key  (vûr ch - l)adj.
Existing or resulting in essence or effect though not in actual fact, form, or name: the virtual extinction of the buffalo.
Existing in the mind, especially as a product of the imagination. Used in literary criticism of a text.
Computer Science. Created, simulated, or carried on by means of a computer or computer network: virtual conversations in a chatroom.
[Middle English virtuall, effective, from Medieval Latin virtu lis, from Latin virt s, excellence. See virtue.] vir tu·al i·ty (- l -t ) n. Usage Note: When virtual was first introduced in the computational sense, it applied to things simulated by the computer, like virtual memory that is, memory that is not actually built into the processor. Over time, though, the adjective has been applied to things that really exist and are created or carried on by means of computers. Virtual conversations are conversations that take place over computer networks, and virtual communities are genuine social groups that assemble around the use of e-mail, webpages, and other networked resources. ·The adjectives virtual and digital and the prefixes e- and cyber- are all used in various ways to denote things, activities, and organizations that are realized or carried out chiefly in an electronic medium. There is considerable overlap in the use of these items: people may speak either of virtual communities or of cybercommunities and of e-cash or cybercash. To a certain extent the choice of one or another of these is a matter of use or convention (or in some cases, of finding an unregistered brand name). But there are certain tendencies. Digital is the most comprehensive of the words, and can be used for almost any device or activity that makes use of or is based on computer technology, such as a digital camera or a digital network. Virtual tends to be used in reference to things that mimic their “real” equivalents. Thus a digital library would be simply a library that involves information technology, whether a brick-and-mortar library equipped with networked computers or a library that exists exclusively in electronic form, whereas a virtual library could only be the latter of these. The prefix e- is generally preferred when speaking of the commercial applications of the the Web, as in e-commerce, e-cash, and e-business, whereas cyber- tends to be used when speaking of the computer or of networks from a broader cultural point of view, as in cybersex, cyberchurch, and cyberspace. But like everything else in this field, such usages are evolving rapidly, and it would be rash to try to predict how these expressions will be used in the future.
http://www.dictionary.com/search?q=virtual

Evaluation of the product
Web conferencing can save you a lot of money, but the up-front investment can be daunting to first time users and small companies. Full-featured Web conferencing suites cost thousands of dollars to provision and thousands per month – and that's not including the audio conferencing costs. Paying for events by-the-minute can eliminate up-front fees but will become even more expensive over time if you run many meetings or events.
Voice Chat – the whole product line is built on top of a voice-over-IP facility. Not duplex, each attendee has a "Talk" button to hold down while speaking. A "Hold Mic" button allows an attendee to keep the microphone and continue speaking without interruption. To keep troublemakers from hijacking a meeting, the meeting moderator has a "Boot" function to temporarily disable their voice chat, and a "Banish" function to permanently prevent them from taking the microphone.
Video Conferencing – several of the products also include a video window for streaming video from a Webcam. Attendees can select the refresh rate for each video window to suite their Internet connections. The crown jewel of the line – the OfficeMaster – also allows an attendee to enlarge any one of the video windows, placing it in the center of the screen.
Text Chat – all the products also include text chat. This provides an alternate channel for questions, requests, help and other activities while someone is using the voice chat.
Page Push – The higher end products include the ability for the presenter to "push" a Web page to a browser window for the attendees to view. With the OfficeMaster, the presenter can have up to 20 URLs preloaded for a meeting, and can introduce additional ones as the meeting progresses.
White Board – the OfficeMaster and ClassMaster also include a "white board" capability for displaying and marking up images. Presenters can preload any number of image files to place on the white board, and then draw or mark them up using drawing, highlighting, and text tools.
The most obvious missing feature of VoiceCafe products is delivery of PowerPoint presentations. There are a couple of straightforward workarounds: one could save the presentation as Web pages and use the page push, or convert them to images and deliver them through the white board.
VoiceCafe products are all hosted services, and most are available with a choice of templates to customize your meeting room. Comprising ActiveX controls that are downloaded at the commencement of a meeting, the products work only on PCs using Internet Explorer 5.0 and later. The OfficeMaster expands this unique line of products to a full-fledged contender for Web conferencing. The company claims it can meetings of up to 500 people at once.
The VoiceCafe products line begins with the entry-level MyCom, which offers voice and text chat for up to 5 people at one for just $12.50 (US) per month. Move up to TourMaster 10/25 to add Web-page push and administrative controls for meetings of up to 25 people for only $65 per month. If you want to run a more formal class, the ClassMaster adds an interactive white board and a video feed to the capabilities of the TourMaster 10/25 for only $125 per month. Even the most sophisticated product, OfficeMaster, starts at just $245 per month for capacity for 10 people. All products require modest start-up fees. And, of course, you might need to fork out $50 for a decent headset and microphone.
Learn more about the product line at voicecafe.optecs.net.

Online survey of Prasena and Bangkok post in 2002: sample question

What do you think of this example from Learning institute: "When Student K. May launches her browser, she is taken to her University’s personalized home page. She can interact with the entire scope of her University’s virtual world“?
a. I would enjoy interacting with others in my University if it had such a system
b. That's where I study. We can communicate with anyone in the University and the rest of the world community
c. I still prefer the face-to-face experience and a desk and a teacher who tells me what and when to learn
d. There's a time and a place for face-to-face communication / learning and for communication /learning on-line
e. I thought virtual learning was something for the far future...

Tony Waltham, Bangkok Post Database 6th March 2002 Technology has been enabling huge changes, both around the world and here in Thailand, and as Post Database works each week to compile the latest news, so we often ask ourselves: "What will our readers make of this new development?'' We are always looking to see how well Thailand is faring, both nationally and internationally, when it comes to adopting technology, asking ourselves where does Thailand stand in terms of its readiness to take advantage of key trends such as globalization or internetworking. Two weeks ago, we concluded a three-week experiment in an attempt to better understand how people here are coping with change. This was our "Cyber-readiness on-line survey,'' which was designed to stimulate thinking and to generate discussions around the various aspects of change that have largely been enabled by rapid technology advances. We were also looking to compare responses from different genders, ages and cultures. To help craft the questionnaire and to analyze and interpret the responses, we looked to Prasena, a research, audit and consulting company established in Bangkok late last year. We asked Prasena to help us because the company was built on the premise that we are now in the midst of revolutionary change, which it calls the "Cybernetic Revolution.''
In the view of its co-founders Isabelle Michelet (who provided us with interpretations of the data), Lukas Ritzel (who was mainly responsible for the survey's provocative questions), and its business director, Philippe Kopcsan, every organization must reassess itself in the light of the impact that this revolution is having on the way we live and work. Prasena believes that the Cybernetic Revolution is characterized by nine main phenomena that affect everyone. Prasena's research director Ms Michelet explained that the first five questions in the survey sought to find out ``how the cybernetic phenomena affected the way people strategies, the way we manage our financial, technical and human resources, the way we proceed with our activities, and also to see how they affect us as a whole.'' The questions that followed reflected each of the nine cyber-phenomena, with a key characteristic being chosen for each of them. These nine aspects are the need to become global citizens, the need to become autonomous, the need to transcend established structures, the need to digitalize, the need to work virtually, the need to be part of the internetworked global community, the need to perform on a real-time basis, the need to innovate, and the need to learn continuously. <http://www.prasena.com/public/partners/media/media8_survey3.html

Goal 1: All students and teachers should have access to information technology in their classrooms, schools, communities and homes.
Goal 2: All teachers should use technology effectively to help students achieve high academic standards.
Goal 3: All students should have technology and information literacy skills.
Goal 4: Research and evaluation will improve the next generation of technology applications for teaching and learning.
Goal 5: Digital content and networked applications should transform teaching and learning.

PERHAPS ONE STEP BEFORE ELEARNING, WHAT NEED EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS DO, TO FRESHEN THEMSELVES UP

In committing to achieve these goals, everyone has a role to play: federal, state and local governments; education; nonprofit organizations and associations; the private sector; communities; and families. For each of these goals, there are numerous strategies that can be undertaken to ensure continued progress in using technology effectively for education.
it will become increasingly important to build and support network infrastructures-wired or wireless, desktop or handheld-that allow multiple devices to connect simultaneously to the Internet throughout every school building and community in the nation.
Ensuring that the nation has effective 21st-century teachers requires more than just providing sufficient access to technology for teaching and learning. We should improve the preparation of new teachers, including their knowledge of how to use technology for effective teaching and learning; increase the quantity, quality and coherence of technology-focused activities aimed at the professional development of teachers; and, improve the instructional support available to teachers who use technology
Also necessary are information problem-solving skills, such as how to define tasks, identify information seeking strategies, locate and access information, determine information's relevance, organize and communicate the results of the information problem-solving effort and evaluate the effectiveness and efficiency of the solution. we will ensure that the opportunities made possible through the use of technology will be available to all students as they progress through school, regardless of personal or socioeconomic factors. To ensure that students are prepared for their future we should: include technology and information literacy in state and local standards for what students should know and be able to do; ensure students use technology appropriately and responsibly; develop new student assessment tools; and strengthen partnerships with industry to help meet the workforce needs of the future.
To ensure that research and evaluation will improve the next generation of technology applications for teaching and learning, we should: initiate a systematic agenda of research and evaluation on technology applications for teaching and learning; encourage state and local evaluations of technology programs; and support the dissemination and use of research-based information to improve teaching and learning.
To ensure that digital content and networked applications will transform teaching and learning, we should: ensure administrators and policymakers are technologically literate; support efforts to increase our understanding of how to improve teaching and learning through partnerships within and across sectors; identify leadership opportunities provided by technology to offer better ways of accomplishing educational goals; continue and expand efforts to digitize rich educational materials consistent with copyright laws; encourage the aggregation of demand for resources and services to attract better and more effective technology-based services for teaching and learning; support educators and technologists in defining what digital content and networked applications should be available to support teaching and learning

100’000 laptops for teachers
IT acts as the ‘DNA’ of education
No more conventional year groups, students learn at their own pace
Replace traditional classrooms through virtual or networked educational spaces
Scope for telestudy
Schools are connected to their local communities, pupils can access online libraries 24/7
UK invests 1.3 billion dollars over the next 6 years in educational technology

The funding for this initiative will go a long way towards meeting the teachers' demand for personal access to computers. ICT in Education is about more than just the right specification at the right price. One will need robust and reliable technology that's easy to use. One will need a solution that provides flexibility. And One will need the peace of mind that comes with expert service and support.

Laptops for Teachers
In January 2002, Estelle Morris, Secretary of State for Education and Skills, announced £100 million over the next two years to provide teachers with personal access to computers. This represents a doubling of the funds previously announced and is evidence of the Government's ongoing commitment to support teachers in this vital area. This initiative builds on the success of previous initiatives but moves the pace forward significantly.
The funding for this initiative will go a long way towards meeting the teachers' demand for personal access to computers. The current generation of schoolchildren has grown up in a world where ICT is second nature - it is therefore crucial that we support teachers in embedding ICT in their teaching practice.
<http://lft.ngfl.gov.uk/index.html

Reasoning and Discussion
A definition for e-learning emerges from the parallel concept of e-mail. E-mail is typically described as the activity of transmitting "mail" with computers and networks. In the same way, e-learning refers to learning activities that involve computers and networks. (The internet and intranets are considered networks.) E-learning does not require learning materials to be delivered by computer, but computer and networks must be involved in this type of learning.
Web-based learning entails content in a Web browser (not just activities), and actual learning materials delivered in Web format. In this, Web-based learning is analogous to textbooks, where the content determines whether a book is a novel, a report, or a textbook. Simply offering computer-based training for download from a Web site is not Web-based learning since there is no learning content in Web format). Web browsing the learning content (even linearly) is the key feature of Web-based learning. Web-based learning content is typically retrieved from a Web site, but alternative solutions are acceptable (a hypertext Web does not require Internet or networks). For instance, some Web-based learning offerings operate from CD-ROM, and many are offered on dual format: Web site and CD-ROM. The CD-ROM solution is typically associated with situations where network access may not be available or practical, like in schools lacking Internet access or very heavy multimedia data, such as video, animations and sound.
Online learning is related to the more common concepts of online help, online documentation, and online services. It is associated with readily available learning materials in a computer environment. Often, online learning refers to learning materials directly accessible from within a core application (like in online help); however, learning materials available online on a network also qualify when readily accessible. Network use is not necessarily required, and in fact the concept of online learning surfaced before the development of the Web and before learning materials were delivered over the Internet or networks.
Distance learning is a concept older than most of those discussed here. It does not require the use of computers or networks. It involves interaction between class members primarily at a distance, and enables the instructor to interact with learners. Distance learning is typically associated with televised broadcasts and correspondence courses, but it also applies to certain e-learning applications. On the Internet, educational interaction primarily at a distance is required between instructor and students, or between students. Typical distance learning in this context includes Internet-based live instructor broadcasts, video-conferencing, chat and scheduled online conference discussions, and even e-mail courses or discussions.

Definition of eLearning: a personalized, on-demand learning experience that uses web-enabled technology and integrated knowledge management to quickly build knowledge, skills, and capability to optimize human performance, anytime, anywhere, while providing the ability to track and measure results.
The electronic delivery of material and/or interaction with the expectation of changing attitude, belief, thinking, and/or the behavior of the learner

You may be familiar with terms such as distance learning , computer based training , online learning , or countless others .  Many of these terms have overlapping meanings, and some experts may even disagree on the best term to use for a type of technology assisted learning.  Throughout the "e-Learning?" section of eLearners.com we will primarily use the term e-learning .
We define e-learning as any form of learning that utilizes a network for delivery, interaction, or facilitation (in a few years you might not even use the computer).  The network could be the Internet, a school or college LAN or even a corporate WAN .  The learning could take place individually (guided or instructed by a computer) or as part of a class.  Online classes meet either synchronously (at the same time) or asynchronously (at different times), or some combination of the two.  eLearners.com deals with all types of learning that fall within this broad definition of e-learning.

Benefits of Real-time Collaboration:

Learn close to real life environment
Reduce unnecessary travel
Make better, faster decisions
Improve team communication
Bring people together

In the learning sphere, real-time environments simulate:
Instructor-led workshops
Give-and-take seminars
Lectures
Reference desk
Study groups
Office hours
Community

In the workplace, real-time collaboration includes:
Virtual conferences (remember video conferencing?)
Virtual meetings
Remote demonstrations
Team coordination
Knowledge management feeder

Sounds all so very good!
Is e the solution we have been waiting for?
Is it simple?
Is it only the students that have to change?
Will it be the solution for all educational institutes and their tutors?
Will it be the definitive end of all Universities as we knew them for centuries?
Can it be done over night: The biggest problem is we live in a nano second world where all things are supposed to be done in an instant.
That kind of attitude is deadly for projects like this.

What we need are people who think in terms of decades, not years. People who would treasure Stewart Brand's "The Clock of The Long Now" --ones who would agree this project is "generationaly worthy" ---something my grandson Michael Ross, will want to pass on to his grandson. It's for sponsors who know that if we can grow awareness in the miracles of distance education we can grow the size of the pie...so vendors like WebCt can get more of their share.
Is such awareness about distance education needed? You bet.
How many know there are over 1.2 million courses available from hundreds of fine universities worldwide?
How many know that education online is better than education face-to-face?
How many employers know that workers trained by distance means are more likely to become all stars than those trained conventionally?
Here's our deal with the corporate world.
We bring them knowledge customers and knowledge workers. They bring us the resources to build our stage, promote the event and fund the prizes.

Brain chip offers blind chance at sight, (Prototype creates tunnel vision in single test subject)By Dan Vergano, USA TODAY First step to recovering sight: James Ochs, left, a programmer for the Dobelle Institute's artificial vision program, adjusts the computer gear worn by "Jerry." With the aid of computer gear and a tiny camera wired to his brain, "Jerry" can read large letters and navigate around big objects, the first artificial eye to provide useful vision, a researcher reports.
A brain implant has given a blind patient a primitive kind of vision, a researcher says. William Dobelle of the Dobelle Institute, a medical device company in New York, says he has perfected an artificial vision device involving a TV camera mounted on glasses. It sends signals to a portable computer worn in a purse; the computer in turn stimulates a 1-inch-square electrode grid implanted atop the brain's visual center.
http://www.choroideremia.org/USAToday.html

Student Centered Philosophy For RKC you are not just a student ID. You are part of our learning community--online. Whatever you are called -- Richard, Douglas, Karin, Apostolos, or Francis,… -- we shall know you by your name. You and all other students and faculty are members of the RKC family engaged in the adult learning process. Together we are a team.An overriding objective of this team is to enable our College ever to improve the quality of education it offers -- your education.
Small and Big All our students benefit from something very important: our personal attention. We are small enough to find the time for our students. Always. And we are small enough to improve and change the content of our courses quickly, following the latest education trends. Yet we are big enough to offer you access to an electronic library with over 1,500,000 current articles from the top 400 business publications. You can access them from the comfort of your home or when you travel, with your laptop. Wherever you have a computer and an Internet access, the class is open for you.

State of the Art Technology
Robert Kennedy College runs its distance-learning programmes on state-of-art software for online course delivery. Developed by Simon Fraser University, Canada, "Virtual-U" is an all-encompassing, interactive and user-friendly software package, which makes studying online an enjoyable experience.  Demo available online click here
World Class Faculty
RKC employs highly qualified faculty graduated from leading Universities like Harvard Business School, Stanford University, Oxford University, Fordham University, London School of Economics, INSEAD, and University of St. Gallen, to name just a few.
Legal Status
The College has been granted legal status by official decree of the Cantonal Department of Education to operate as a private institution providing post-secondary education in Business and in Law by distance learning and by residential seminars.
Accreditation and Recognition
RKC is the first Swiss-based institution offering online degree programmes to achieve full Accreditation. Robert Kennedy College business programmes at undergraduate and masters level are accredited by the European Council for Business Education (ECBE), the European leading accreditation body for business schools. The DBA Programmed accreditation process with ECBE is underway (began in July 2001). RKC Legal programmes are accredited for continuing professional development by the Bar Council and Law Society of England and Wales.

Canadian universities and colleges were early adopters of online education beginning in the mid-1980’s with OISE/University of Toronto
Today, most of Canada’s universities and colleges offer online courses and some institutions deliver entire online programs
Canadian offerings represent 25% of the 40,900 courses in the TeleCampus database of online courses available from education providers from around the world

Canadian universities and colleges were early adopters of online education beginning in the mid-1980’s with OISE/University of Toronto. Today, most of Canada’s universities and colleges offer online courses and some institutions deliver entire online programs. Canadian offerings represent 25% of the 40,900 courses in the TeleCampus database of online courses available from education providers from around the world.1  Canada has also been home to developers that have created some of the most widely used eLearning tools and platforms such as WebCT, CSILE/Knowledge Forum, and First-Class.
Part of the reason for the interest and activity in eLearning has been the investments of the Canadian federal and provincial governments in a number of programs, including research and development and demonstration projects. As one example, in 1995, the Canadian government supported the creation of the TeleLearning Network of Centers of Excellence (TL•NCE). Involving 30 Canadian universities in a national research and knowledge/technology transfer program, the TL•NCE developed, applied, and evaluated networked learning across the sectors of lifelong learning with a major focus on post-secondary education.
More recently, a number of pan-Canadian consortiums such as the Collaboration for Online Learning in Higher Education and Research (COHERE) and the Canadian Virtual University have been created to advance eLearning practice at Canadian universities.

Welcome to Canadian Virtual University – your one doorway to 13 Canadian universities offering over 175 programs available through the Internet or by distance education.
When you enroll in one of these programs, you can select courses offered by any of the participating universities. This means 2000 courses to chose from, and the list is growing.

Sample Canada - http://www.cvu-uvc.ca/

"CVU offers its cornucopia through distance learning...never before has such an abundance of post-secondary education been brought together in a single institution." Time (Canadian Edition), 12 November, 2001

True to its name, Canadian Virtual University (CVU) has no campus, no faculty buildings, no student union or football stadium. . . . What CVU does have is a syllabus of more than 2,000 courses at 13 universities across Canada, ranging from institutions such as the University of Manitoba and the University of New Brunswick to less corporeal entities like British Columbia's Open Learning Agency, which brings education to rural areas. CVU offers its cornucopia through "distance learning"-a combination of old-school correspondence courses and newfangled online study. In practice, this means students anywhere in the country or the world can spend years at higher learning without once laying eyes on their instructors.
Never before has such an abundance of postsecondary education been brought together in a single institution. Each offering can be put toward 250 different degrees and certificates from CVU-affiliated institutions. CVU – barely a year old – offers 30% of its courses in French and boasts Canada's largest executive MBA program, with more than 1,000 students enrolled.
"This allows students to mix and match," says Dominique Abrioux, president of Athabasca University, the Alberta-based, distance-only institution that is the chief building block in CVU's online sprawl. When Abrioux took the helm of Athabasca in 1995, it was a small cluster of facilities 150 km north of Edmonton. Distance learning was considered the dim cousin of "real" class work. But then the Internet exploded, and Abrioux scrambled to stake out a prominent spot for his school in cyberspace. "The past seven years have been a complete transformation of the business," he says.
No kidding. Even Harvard has added an online element to its curriculum. And once obscure Athabasca? "We've doubled in size in the past four years," Abrioux notes. . . .

Technologies supporting eLearning:

Audio, one-way or two, phone or VOIP
Shared whiteboard
Synchronized web browsing
Text chat
Application viewing/sharing
Content windows
Video, one-way or two, live or canned
Discussion boards. not real-time but useful for class info or Faq's
Record and playback. by instructor or student.
Polling
Hand-raising and yes/no buttons
Pre-session content distribution
Assessment/testing/scheduling

Usenet, or internet news, is a completely threaded discussion. One can select the desired topic (newsgroup) to browse, and is then confronted with a list of all messages that have been posted to that discussion. Usenet requires special software, a news reader, to access. With a threaded system, each message is stored on its own page. Thus, to read about something more in detail, one needs to click on the link from the top page, bringing up the concerned screen.

Clearly, each of these types of communications has its benefits. Although in-person communication provides opportunities to clarify and restate (and to take advantage of tone of voice and body language), many students are reluctant to engage in direct communication with an instructor or their fellow classmates. Online communications via e-mail, mailing lists, and discussion boards or chat rooms can level the playing field and remove some of the psychological and social barriers to student-teacher and student-student interactions.
Content delivery is another area in which big differences surface. Indeed, it is one of the biggest bones of contention in the war of the worlds. Traditional content delivery via written, oral, or visual lectures doesn’t map well online. The term “shovelware” has been coined to describe the tendency to load up the Web with notes. Sir John Daniel, during his tenure at the United Kingdom’s Open University, observed: “...our own Open University experience of the use of the Net and the Web at scale indicates that its most powerful and popular use is for communication between people about the course rather than for dumping the content of the course on each student’s computer.”
Asynchronous communications, on the other hand, score big in the online world. The ability to post messages, read and respond to messages, reflect on responses, revise interpretations, and modify original assumptions and perceptions is the silver bullet and a distinguishing characteristic of online teaching. Considered a hallmark of the online world, active learning actually serves as a great example of a best teaching practice that spans both worlds. Increasingly, instructors employ active and even collaborative learning in the classroom. Active learning translates well to the online world through the development of Web quests, treasure hunts, Web-based presentations, and other means for engaging students actively in the construction of knowledge. Increasingly, perhaps as a result of feedback from online courses, on-campus instructors are incorporating more active learning in their classes in conjunction with traditional lecture formats.
Finally, one of the best qualities of online teaching is that it offers greater flexibility in terms of what is taught and how it is taught throughout the course. Formative assessments [MEANS BUILDING UP THE EXPERIENCE WORKING WITH A STUDENT AND ASSESS HIM/HER OVER TIME] provide opportunities for immediate feedback on student learning and learning styles, and they allow an instructor to modify the approach to achieving learning outcomes. Summative assessments [I HAVE NEVER SEEN THE STUDENT BEFORE IN MY LIFE AND JUST TEST HIM/HER ON HIS/HER KNOWLEDGE] —including midterms, final exams, and end-of-course surveys—in on-campus courses are not typically intended to help make in-session modifications to a course. But by taking advantage of the capability for collecting and crunching numbers quickly for statistical or qualitative analysis, online exams and surveys enable an instructor to evaluate what’s working and what’s not working nearly in real time.

Architecture. The performance requirements for e-learning must verified for architectures and applications for different environments; e.g. content in the public domain over a low-bandwidth connection for the K-12 customer space, requires a different architecture than a high-bandwidth corporate application which requires content security (i.e. digital rights management). Any architecture must be flexible to allow applications to be accessed by end-users asynchronously - anytime, anywhere learning, and not confine the end-user to traditional distance learning, synchronous environments. These architectures must allow for seamless transfer of content from provider-distributor-end-user, low-latency networks for interactivity, rights management, and maintain fidelity of content on the end-user platform.Standards. Standards are needed to ensure that the e-learning modules will be compatible with the technology used to store, distribute, and present it and transportable within different e-learning architectures. This includes the current specifications to support the most powerful features of E-learning media. Examples are metadata and tagging for educational content, file format for distribution (e.g. OEB, XML) presentation, storage protocols, and standards for web access and web casting of rich media.
Content. Converting traditional learning content into electronic files does not fulfill the expectation of the emerging E-learning industry. New"E-learning" content will need to be developed that provides accommodations for multi-media, human interactivity, records management, compatibility, accessibility, reusability, and digital rights management. In order to take advantage of the potential of E-learning, guidelines will be needed to promote the creation of content that utilizes the full potential in the emerging E-learning architecture environment. Content standards examples, are the use of emerging IMS and
At the most basic level, the commercial products of an E-learning business are:
E-learning Content. This is the educational module, organized and formatted to facilitate its use in E-learning.Distribution and Presentation of E-learning content. The communications (networked and/or physical distribution), the hardware and software used for distribution and presentation, and the services associated with distribution and presentation are all essential, and all can generate revenue for the businesses involved.
E-learning Management. This includes the functions for managing a traditional institution of learning (organizing a curriculum, keeping records, administering tests, and so on), plus any new management functions that are specific to E-learning (for example, communications security).

‘Same old story’ can not succeed
Flexibility and Interactivity with multiple pathways for learning
Media-rich and adaptive environments that both provide individualized learning
Sensory perceptions are supported by text, graphics, audio, video, animation and simulation
Accessible to large numbers of learners for collaborations and group discussions.
Not only the students have to become ‘e’. It is everybody who needs to be involved – students, teachers, administration, environment, government

‘Same old story’ can not succeed
the mistake is often made of recreating a classroom-teaching model within an online learning environment. Online technology designed to mimic the classroom becomes a restriction and a barrier to the teacher’s ability to impart knowledge.
In hypermedia-based systems, multimedia objects in the form of audio clips for graphical objects, annotated video segments, and online simulations are presented with an associated database of concepts. The modes of learning change from textual to audio, and audio to video, and so forth, as the learner invokes the multimedia objects merely by clicking on links. This provides the flexibility to acquire knowledge from different modes, e.g., auditory, visual, and kinesthetic. Web browsers are networked hypermedia interfaces that allow such flexible, multimodal explorations for a given subject matter
These cognitive pathways refer to the sensory perceptions of the human mind and include vision, hearing, touch, smell, and taste. The sensory organs provide the necessary stimulus for infants to assimilate information and the human brain to assimilate knowledge. With the development of language skills, higher order learning becomes possible. The cognitive pathways then become text, graphics, audio, video, animation, and simulations.

As K Chakrawan writes in his research paper ‘School administrators must be able to perceive their school district as a whole consisting of interlocking parts, which themselves are composed of more interlocking parts’ [K Chakrawan Nakarat, ‘The comparison of the impact of computers in education between Australia and Thailand’, 2002]

About Kinko's, Inc.
Kinko's is the world's leading provider of visual communications services, document creation and copying. Its global network of over 1,000 digitally connected locations offers 24-hour access to technology for color printing, finishing and presentation services, Internet access, videoconferencing and Web-based on-demand printing and document management solutions. Named for the second consecutive year as one of Fortune's 100 best companies to work for in America, it is a privately held corporation, with more than 25,000 co-workers, and locations in nine countries. Kinko's is headquartered in Ventura, CA. For more information, go to www.kinkos.com.

It’s about serving learners and not about using technology. First of all, designing educational experiences around technology is a foolish chase. You cannot possibly keep up with the technology. The paradox of technology enhanced education is that technology changes very rapidly and human beings change very slowly. It would seem to make sense for proponents of e-learning to begin with the students. At least that is a relatively slow moving target. Deployment of technology then becomes an exercise in applying a rapidly improving technology to a very consistent set of goals. Although this can be a challenge, it is a much more doable task. Over the last 15 years, the state of the art in distance learning has gone from satellite delivery of video, through interactive compressed video or video conferencing to web based on-line learning. The Sloan Foundation* did much to popularize the standard model of on-line learning as Asynchronous Learning Networks (ALN). This model was further enshrined when the U.S. Department of Education created the Learning Anytime Anyplace Partnerships program (LAAP) around the Sloan Model. The anytime-anyplace mantra became accepted dogma in the on-line world. Proponents of the ALN models often looked down their noses at their colleagues still operating in the older video based worlds.
Unfortunately the doctrine of the “anytime-anyplace” ALN model also had it’s own flaws. The “asynchronous” nature of the model certainly had some advantages of flexibility for the student and manageability for the institution, but it also has some challenges in the area of retention and completion. Further, it often enshrined technology limitations as necessary elements of the new model. Technology did not easily support audio or video over the network in the early days. Thus the ALN model envisioned both threaded discussions and live chat. This was supposed to provide some of the interactivity that is vital to any effective learning experience. Video and audio were neglected as important tools. Making a virtue of necessity, we began to see articles talking about why a model that had students typing at one another was superior to students talking to one another.
Both experience and research tends to indicate that audio and video interactions have some advantages over typing interactions. Even more interesting: audio tends to be more important than video. Audio, video, threaded discussion, and live chat all have their advantages and disadvantages. Which modalities to use in a given educational environment should be a pedagogical question first and a technical question second. Enshrining technical limitations as pedagogical advantages is not a productive trade.
*http://www.sloan.org/

In the ‘training jungle, corporate performance is the elephant. Training’s only function is to hunt the elephant. Focusing solely on employee’s learning needs does not bag elephants. The ‘e’ in eLearning is not for electronics; its also for ‘e’lephant.
<Jay Cross, 2002

Jay Cross is founder and CEO of Internet Time Group. He has been passionate about harnessing technology to improve adult learning since the sixties. Fresh out of college, he sold mainframes the size of Chevy Suburbans. Later, he designed the University of Phoenix's first business degree program. He took a training startup to national prominence, capturing 80% market share and training a million professionals to make sound decisions and sell services. He has managed several software startups and is the former president of MegaMedia WorldWide. A self-described "Web fanatic," he has been marrying training to the net since 1996.

Jay founded Internet Time Group in early 1998 to help organizations learn. His five-year scenario plan, the Internet Time Machine, presented at TechLearn 98, was one of the earliest descriptions of eLearning. He delivered the inaugural keynote on web marketing to the first meeting of the Online Banking Association. He has spoken at eLearning Forum, Training, Online Educa, Image World, Instructional Systems Association, Training Directors Forum, Online Learning, ASTD, and many other conferences. He is the author of numerous articles and white papers on eLearning and business effectivness. He is co-founder and fellow of the Meta-Learning Lab.

Jay advised CBT Systems during its transition to SmartForce, the eLearning Company, writing newsletters, presentations, and white papers. He helped Cisco e-Learning Partners plan, implement, and market their initial web-based certification programs. He designed the e-commerce website that took ClickAction from bricks to clicks. He co-authored (with Wayne Hodgins) the vision paper that kicked off the ASTD/National Governors Association Committee on Technology and Adult Learning. He contributed a chapter to the recent book Implementing E-Learning Solutions. He assisted Institute for the Future in building scenarios for global corporate learning circa 2008. His articles have appeared in LINEZine, Learning Circuits, Training and Development, Technology for Learning, and American Banker.

Internet Time Group provides hands-on advice on implementing eLearning, developing information architecture, advising management, and accelerating sales. Internet Time Group coaches corporate executives on getting the most from their investments in eLearning and collaboration.

From eLearning to effective eLearning:

Beyond providing a publishing and distribution environment
Integral course components
Knowledgeable developers
Instructors familiar with instructional design principles
Take advantage of networked computers
Collaborative learning and knowledge building
Instructors and students are supported with pedagogical and technical assistance
Student can interact with peers, instructors, experts and rich online resources [see next slide – libraries]

Since the first implementations of eLearning, defined broadly as learning using networked computers, we have learned a great deal about the approaches that are most effective.
Effective eLearning goes beyond providing a publishing and distribution environment to the offering of online learning activities as integral course components. Knowledgeable developers and instructors familiar with instructional design principles for online learning take advantage of the power of networked computers to engage students by providing them with opportunities to interact with peers, instructors, experts, and rich online resources.
Collaborative learning and knowledge building approaches are used and, throughout the learning experience, the instructor and students are supported with pedagogical and technical assistance.
A classic study at Standard found that Hewlett Packard engineers who watched videotaped lectures followed by informal discussion performed better than Stanford engineering students who attended the same lectures on campus. Instead of an on-campus lecturer pouring content into students' heads, the HP engineers were challenged to construct their own interpretation of the subject matter.

But, How Do We Know if Any Learning Experience is Effective?The question of effectiveness has plagued the learning community for decades, if not centuries. Just what is an effective learning experience?
How do we determine what is a result of an essential learning skill as opposed to the contribution of the learning experience?
Feuerstein (1980) asserts that a highly stimulating learning experience is not sufficient to guarantee that the person actually learns from it. Particular learning skills are also required (Howe, 1987): utilizing information in memory, remembering the past and imagining the future, understanding and looking for relationships between perceived objects, organizing and seeing patterns, regularities and other relationships.
Hence, a person with very high learning skills might "learn" more readily than one without, even if the experience is highly ineffective.

“Silent” Generation (born 1930-1945)
Born with the military technologies that were to lead to analog, digital and virtual technologies
“Baby-Boom” Generation (born 1945-1960)
Born with the analog and astronautic technologies
Generation “X” (born 1960-1975)
Born among analog technologies (telephone, TV), witnessed and participated in the development of digital technologies
Generation “Y” (born 1975-1990)
Born with the first generation of digital technologies, witnessed and participated in the development of networked technologies
… and soon, Generation “e” (born 1990-2005)
Born in the midst of new technologies

Of course, while it is correct to define "us" as economic entities, we also have to look at the individual humans that make these economic entities. This is especially important when talking about Human Resources management of organizations of more than one person. Indeed, there was a time when employees were referred to as "workforce", that is a group of undifferentiated people whose status as individuals was at best ignored. Minority groups got progressive recognition over the last 100 years and granted specific rights (women, handicapped, expatriates...) but overall, the management of an organization would pretty much consider that all of its employees had similar goals in life and motivations to work. And maybe they had, even though a "workforce" often spanned over as much as four generations of employees. But the term "generation gap", often lightly used in families when they have problems with their teenage members, is now acquiring its full meaning in the corporate environment. The acceleration of change in the 20th Century and particularly with the start of the Cybernetic Revolution has already had a dramatic impact on Humans. From one generation to the next, people have a different perception of the world and their place within it. They think differently, their reference values and role models are different. This means that they don't work the same way, and neither do they work for the same reasons. It is very important that these differences be identified, analyzed and taken into consideration in any management process and decision.

People born among analog technologies (telephone, TV). Witnessed and participated in development of digital technologies.

Grew up in recession times, inherited debt and aging population problems

Characterized by individualism, resourcefulness, cynicism, …

Generation X (born 1960-1975)
A category of people who wanted to “hop off the merry-go-round of status, money, and social climbing that so often frames modern existence”. Such people are described as “underemployed, overeducated, intensely private and unpredictable”.
People born among analog technologies (telephone, TV). Witnessed and participated in development of digital technologies.
Although it is the "Silent" (1930-1945) and "Baby-Boom" (1945-1960) generations who invented the technologies that enabled the Cybernetic Revolution, it is difficult to include them in the "Cybernetic Revolution generations". Indeed, it is as if they had unleashed a monster that they fear is uncontrollable, and they often have the greatest difficulties to enjoy the effects of their creation. The first transition generation is therefore the famous "Gen X". It is famous especially among HR Managers, because it is the first generation of employees that started to really question authority. "Xers" appear unmanageable because the traditional carrots and sticks do not work with these "hard-heads", whose personal goals and professional aspirations are so different from their elders'. While teenagers, Xers witnessed the emergence of the digital technologies that demonstrated the uselessness of most of what they were learning at school, as well as the irrelevance of their elders' advice and guidance. They started to collect with relish the famous "last words" or blunders such as the quote from IBM founder Thomas Watson predicting that there was a market for about five computers in the world. At this early stage of the digital technologies, new solutions were sprouting and dying so fast that no reference seemed reliable. Hence the X-ers' tendency to do everything their own way, and take nothing at face value. X-ers constitute today the core of the so-called "workforce". They still often have difficulties with elder management, but they begin to have power enough to change rules and policies towards their own beliefs and values. In doing so, they need to be careful, because the new generations are as different from them as they were from Silent and Baby Boom generations.
Characterized by individualism, resourcefulness, cynicism, selfishness, result-orientation, taste for experimentation, tendency to question authority, relatively high education, deep-seated economic insecurity, lack of social trust and confidence in government, weak allegiance to country and political parties, tendency to marry and have children late. “Go-getters who are just doing it… but their way” (Time Magazine)

Would you like to becocme a virtual student and have a virtual ‘pint’ [beer], easy, just visit http://www.drinktalking.com/student_union_bars

The Perils of the Virtual Student in Cyberspace by Julie Hook
Until last year, when I thought of "distance education" I thought of a child in an Outback homestead
Seeking Quality Online - The Perils of the Virtual Student
listening as his "School of the Air" teacher spoke to him from thousands of miles away through the crackling noise of the radio. That educational model kept a lot of Outback Australian children with their families, rather than having to be sent to boarding school "in the city" in the 1950s and 1960s.
Now that I have joined the desperate band of professionals who want to upgrade their qualifications because of organisational downsizing, rightsizing, or sheer institutional ‘bloodymindedness’, distance education looks quite different. Distance education via the Internet means that universities are no longer limited by state or national boundaries. Through the magic of the Internet, there is a completely new forum for teaching and learning. All students, regardless of their distance from the university can now, like the Outback children in mid-century, undertake their studies without leaving home. Only in the digital age the computer replaces the radio.
To get more on this: http://www.press.umich.edu/jep/05-01/hooke.html

Successors of Generation X, children of Baby-Boomers. Grew up in economic expansion, end of cold war, blooming freedoms

Characterized by high self-esteem and confidence, multi-tasking ability, …

Generation Y (born 1975-1990)
People born among first generation of digital technologies. Witnessed and participated in development of networked technologies
Successors of Generation X, children of Baby-Boomers. Grew up in economic expansion, end of cold war, blooming freedoms
Characterized by high self-esteem and confidence, multi-tasking ability, capacity to process information very fast, urge to develop a career fast, tendency to expect to be given high responsibilities immediately, arrogance, upbeat character, individualism, impatience, boldness, tendency to overestimate themselves, tendency to expect employer to adapt to them, optimism
The Generation Y constitutes today the junior part of the workforce, which it has been entering for about five years. In fact, it might have started to impact the corporate world much earlier, whether it was invited to do so, or not! Y-ers are the first people in History that have spent all their lives among digital technologies. They take them for granted and show an uncanny ability to use them in ways and in a scope never imagined by their elders. And they are much less patient than the X-ers. Because the Gen X grew up in an environment where processes were first manual, then became digital but with severe limitations in memory and reliability, X-ers developed a careful process-based analytical approach to issues. For them, things need to be conceptualized first, then implemented, then tested. Y-ers have no taste or time for this. In the view of Gen Y, digital technologies are reliable and conduct most of the analytical process - Humans don't test them, they use them, play with them. Gen Y hackers are not Gen X hackers: they don't try to demonstrate that a system does not work and make fun of the failure, they just use the system as it is to go wherever they want and do whatever they want. A Gen X hacker would crack into the CIA just for the fun of showing that the CIA's security systems are not secure. A Gen Y hacker would crack into the CIA to access information he/she wants to change a file, watch the ripple effect and feel the power to change the world. Y-ers are in a hurry to seize the power and change the world. The more so, maybe, because they know that once the next generation comes in, they won't have much to say anymore...

Successors of Generation Y, children of Generation X. Grow up in crisis environment, uncertainty in the face of change

Characterized by awareness of the world, environment-consciousness, high technology-literacy, …

Millennial Generation, or Generation “e” (born >1990)
People born among new technologies

Successors of Generation Y, children of Generation X. Grow up in crisis environment, uncertainty in the face of change

Characterized by awareness of the world, environment-consciousness, high technology-literacy, …

Millennial Generation, or Generation “e” (born >1990)
People born among new technologies
Successors of Generation Y, children of Generation X. Grow up in crisis environment, uncertainty in the face of change
Characterized by awareness of the world, environment-consciousness, high technology-literacy, urge to grow up fast, disrespect for elders and authority, lack of proper role models and references, self-confidence
It will be some time, before we see the Generation "e" join employees' ranks. Yet, we already watch them in awe, as if they were some kind of aliens. Gurus use them as references, quoting them in their serious economic books. Our six-year olds teach us how to use this or that web application, looking with perplexed eyes at those Mums and Dads who don't even know such simple things. Although many more technologies will probably be invented in the future, today's children are born at a stage when both the technologies that enabled the Cybernetic Revolution (digital technologies) and those that allow it to gain full speed (networked technologies) are fully operational. Two generations away from the pre-Cybernetic Revolution era, they will remember it no more than their parents remember the pre-typewriter age. Because of the pace of change, these children will have no role model to refer to, and they certainly won't look up to their elders, whose shortcomings they already see too well. Yet, we must remember that these children will soon inherit our organizations. For the sake of economic survival and to avoid traumatic upheavals, we must ensure that they consider these organizations and their structures usable. And this requires a lot of preparations, starting with the rethinking of our entire business model and ways of working, in the perspective of the Cybernetic Revolution and its characteristics.

Libraries should be key players in university eLearning initiatives. As stated by the Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) in their response to the Canadian Advisory Committee for Online Learning in May, 2001: "If there is no provision of library information resources there can be very little learning, online or otherwise".  Libraries serve as information literacy trainers, experts in organizing and providing access to online resources, content providers through digitization projects, and providers of print resources for learners.  In the case of libraries, what is good for the online student is also good for the campus-based student. As one example, in a survey of universities and colleges in Canada, institutions offering online curses are more likely to provide their students with access to local and remote electronic library resources. Despite their important contribution, many libraries are often not represented on the planning committees that are making recommendations to university administrators on eLearning needs and strategies. This is a missed opportunity, both for the libraries and for the institutions.

Promise of virtual university programs

eLearning courses and programs, however, still represent a small percentage of the education of students as evidenced by the following statistics:
In a U.S. survey, 5% of respondents reported taking a college course online.4  2.5% of U.S. MBA students are enrolled in an online or other distance program. This does not necessarily point to a failing of eLearning approaches as there are several possible explanations for these results. Many first eLearning offerings are single courses not programs and the requirements for student registration make it difficult or time-consuming for learners to register for a single course. Universities have also relied on traditional marketing channels to reach students and international marketing efforts are usually limited
Another promise of online learning is that it is the "Trojan horse of pedagogical innovation" and leads to faculty revitalization and institutional innovation. Some of the early field trials of eLearning support this promise While innovative eLearning instruction has been demonstrated by early adopters at the individual or faculty level, few universities have expanded such pilots across their institution. In general, university administrators have little understanding of eLearning’s potential to achieve the university’s primary goals and most universities or colleges do not have a written institutional vision or strategy on its use of eLearning
Particularly in the mid-90’s and during the time of "dot-com fever", there was considerable hype that eLearning programs were an avenue to new revenue streams and quick profits for public institutions and new private start-ups. Today, the eLearning industry is a complex mix of public and private organizations, consortia, and public-private partnerships delivering eLearning. Expectations of growth and profitability are much more reasonable. Long established institutions with accredited programs and a physical presence appear to have the competitive advantage
For Prasena - there are no longer discussions of whether online learning works. Now, these discussions focus on the much more sophisticated questions of who learns best in this environment, and what pedagogy works best. The rapid and broad acceptance of online classes by both faculty and students provides dramatic evidence that the asynchronous teaching/learning paradigm can and does support effective learning

Why would anyone use a eLearning approach?

Improve the learning experience for students
Overcome infrastructure and resource constraints
Reach new learners
Revitalize faculty, staff, and institutional programs and services
Encourage and enable collaboration/joint delivery with other national or global providers

Educational psychologist William Glasser claims we learn:
10% of what we read
20% of what we hear
30% of what we see
50% of what we see and hear
70% of what we discuss with others
80% of what we experience
95% of what we teach someone else
<http://www.wglasser.com/whoweare.htm

Free market competition will increase and taxpayer subsidy will decrease, resulting in better quality and cheaper prices, perhaps by as much as 75%. Institutions which involve themselves heavily in the vending of knowledge will be very big winners; more because they will be supremely good head-hunters, skimming the cream for their own needs -- far more important than whatever bottom line profits their knowledge centers will yield. Which will also be considerable.
Degrees will matter less but mastery of the humanities will matter more. They only built barriers to lifelong learning.
Home-schooling will grow, and dramatically; but the desktop business won't be one tenth as big as will mini knowledge facilities situated in places like Kinko's in America and the post office overseas. Cyber cafes will wake up that they can broker courses as easily as they can broker on-line catalogues and in-house coffee.
Within 10 years the market will confirm that if a course is not offered on-line, there is a strong possibility it isn't worth taking at all. From that date forward, the heaviest shells will fall. BUT! Be aware about ‘anti-voices’!

For some students, this is what college is all about. The football games, the camaraderie, hanging out and, hopefully, getting an education.
Excerpt from a online discussion on eLearning:
At Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia, sociology professor Donald Smith is discussing the different methods of conducting and evaluating research in Sociology 337: Introduction to Social Research.
Two hundred miles away, in Fairfax City, Virginia, another student is taking that same course -- except Virgina Fedor is at home, logged on and plugged into Professor Smith's virtual classroom. Fedor needs the course for a degree in criminal justice.
For financial and personal reasons, Fedor is unable to take four years off from work to attend college. She works full-time -- 4 p.m. to midnight -- at a security office nearby.
VIRGINIA FEDOR, DISTANCE LEARNING STUDENT: I'm taking care of a mother who has recurring cancer. I want to be available to help my family
If I miss a class, I'm not missing any material. I can log in whenever I want, I can replay the course whenever I want and the instructor is always available online by e-mail or over the phone.
PELTZ (voice-over): Today, more than 14 million people log onto their computers and double-click into a virtual classroom. Available are classes for undergraduates and graduate degrees in fields as diverse as nursing, business, engineering and technology. Experts predict e-learning will become a $2 billion industry within four years. strategy+business magazine has been watching the growth of e-learning. Randall Rothenberg is its editor in chief.

Lack of motivation since nothing really new and exiting
Absence of a real champion
Lack of effective internal marketing
Lack of communication
Lack of merchandizing skills

BUT EVEN IF THE FEAR IS GONE AND THE SYSTEM IS SETUP, WHY SUCH A DISAPPOINTING UTILIZATION RATE

Low utilization rates - hundreds of corporations have spent millions of dollars on e-Learning only to discover that only very few of their employees are actually using courses online. Why? Dismal usage rates happen for several reasons, which range from no motivation, or incentive, for learning to a lack of effective internal marketing and communication.
Best practice companies that we do business with apply learning to competencies needed to effectively do jobs and are tying leadership development to compensation as a way to encourage training.
IDC Sees European E-Learning Market Growing to $4 Billion by 2004
A study of e-learning growth trends in Europe by Internet market research firm IDC predicts the market will grow at a compound annual rate of 96 percent, reaching $4 billion by 2004. IT-related e-learning will comprise more than half of that growth, the firm's London division said in a release.
E-learning content will represent the largest component of sales during that period, says senior analyst Sheila McGovern. "Although the delivery solutions or infrastructure tools segment of the market is an important one, I believe it will become increasingly commoditized over the next few years with a few dominant players emerging," McGovern said in announcing the report.
This ‘Europe-only’ report identifies the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and Sweden as the most robust markets for e-learning, attributing their faster adoption to lower language and localization barriers for the predominately English language-based e-learning development community.
The report, Corporate eLearning Market Forecast and Analysis 2000, is available for purchase from IDC; more information can be found on their Website, www.idc.com

“The lack of human interaction" is the most often cited reservation to Internet Based Training. “Online mentoring and support" is one of the three top services to request when selecting e-Learning providers. (Source: IDC - Are Managers Ready to Purchase Internet-Based IT Training? Results of Education Buyers Survey.)
“Lack of interactivity" is the #1 obstacle that limits online training. (Source: Forrester Report - Online Training Needs a New Course)
"User-Instructor interaction" is one of seven core benefits desired most by businesses implementing e-Learning programs. (Source: Brandon Hall - Live e-Learning: How to Choose a System for Your Organization)

Barriers to entry may be low, but barriers to success are certainly quite high. A cursory examination of the patterns of development of virtual universities demonstrates that it is a lot harder to be successful than many thought. It is very easy to start a virtual university. All one had to do was to set up a server, create a portal, acquire a learning management system, develop some courses, and begin the marketing. For those institutions finding this too much to contemplate, learning service providers would come in and do it all for you. Entry was easy.
As we have seen, finding success has been considerably more difficult. Even defining success becomes elusive. For those institutions that took the for-profit route, either on their own or in a joint venture, success often meant large financial returns.
Now that visions of e-learning billions have evaporated for most institutions, we will get down to the serious business of creating the leading virtual universities. These institutions will be both public and private. We have seen that both models can work if the institutions are clear about their goals and organize themselves appropriately. Mixing unlike goals or a lack of clarity in goals will continue to be a sign of expected failure.
Nearly every university will have some involvement in on-line learning, but not every university will be a net exporter of educational programs. Reputation, or brand, will be very important, but it will not be the whole story. Strong brands with weak programs will not be successful. There will be room for different kinds of brands to serve different characteristics of learners. Some will be price sensitive and some will not. Some will want nothing but the designer brand programs and some will seek commodity style education at wholesale prices. Just as some people buy Mercedes while others buy Lexus, learners will seek out brands that appeal to their sense of themselves and their needs. Even within a market segment, there will be room for market differentiation. Some will prefer Toyota to Honda. Others will want Lexus instead of Mercedes.
The e-learning revolution is not over. It is just entering a more intelligent and less self-indulgent phase. History demonstrates that the first movers in technology are rarely the eventual leaders. Dumont may have invented the television, but the company disappeared in the early days of television. Edison invented electrical generation, but his DC systems lost out to the AC systems of later competitors.
 There is lots of opportunity for excitement in the next few years. Moore’s law* is continuing the relentless increase in computing power and continuing to push down prices. The bandwidth law shows that we will continue to see faster and faster networks bringing higher and higher quality materials into our homes. There is much that is predictable over the coming decade. Technology is relentless and dependable in its advance. Human beings will continue to exhibit the characteristics that they have exhibited for centuries. Maslov’s** hierarchy of human needs will change little. The paradox of a rapidly changing technology serving a slowly changing humankind will provide opportunities for those who start from culture, values, and human need and have the insight and courage to know how technology can serve these.
*http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/M/Moores_Law.html
**http://www.connect.net/georgen/maslow.htm

While we cannot yet establish all reasons for the complaints, there are obvious contributing consequences of a rush to "go-digital":
Poor quality content regardless of format
Poor instructional design
Inappropriate software decisions
Inappropriate content for the business and learning objectives
Technology and infrastructure problems

eLearning is not a prediction. (Half of all major corporate software projects fail, as do two-thirds of all knowledge initiatives -- and eLearning is an even greater challenge.) Rather, eLearning is a target to shoot for and catalyst to spark fresh ideas [Jay Cross, 2002]
2001, almost every college and university announced that they were going on-line. Venture capitalists dumped billions into eLearning start-ups of all kinds. There were billions to be made and the first movers would be the ones to profit! Or so we thought. The new “for-profit” start-ups dangled visions of millions of dollars in front of Presidents and Deans, and some jumped at the chance. Pensare teamed up with Duke. Click2Learn teamed with NYU Online. Fathom teamed with XanEdu. The University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School teamed with Caliber, a spin-off from Sylvan Learning. Cornell spun of eCornell to the consternation of faculty. Kaplan Ventures, Knowledge Universe, Pearson, and Sylvan Ventures made investments and acquisitions totaling $3.6 billion in 2000 and were expected to invest at least $2 billion additional in 2001 and 2002. UNext created Cardean University and partnered with Columbia, the London School of Economics, Stanford, Carnegie Mellon, and the University of Chicago. Reportedly Cardean had pledged to pay Columbia, and perhaps the others, $20 million dollars if they failed within five years. The exact structure of the contracts is not public. North Carolina, Harvard, and the University of Southern California went to University Access for help in getting online. Harcourt Higher Education was launched as a college in 2000 and confidently predicted “50,000 to 100,000 enrollments within five years.”
That was then and this is now. Pensare is gone. Unable to attract the external financing that it had hoped for, Fathom had to obtain $20 million in financing internally. Cardean has laid off over half its work force this year and has asked the universities to restructure the business arrangement. Rumors suggest that “restructure” means that the universities are not getting their $ 20 million after all! Temple University, who had followed the crowd in creating a for-profit spin-off, quietly closed that spin-off without really ever activating it. They got more press for closing a virtually non-existent operation than most others get for running viable programs! Harcourt is gone after enrolling a total of 32 students in 2001. eCornell is open now, but with very small programs and drastically reduced expectations. Caliber has filed for bankruptcy. University Access has changed its name and withdrawn from higher education.
The Chronicle asks wryly “Is anyone making money on on-line learning?” The conclusion seems to be that there are indeed a few organizations that have demonstrated viability. The University of Maryland University College’s effort UMUC-Online, Penn State’s World Campus and the University of Massachusetts UMass Online represent campus based programs that have had some success. The University of Phoenix is everyone’s poster child for the for-profit online university, either as a cautionary tale of a market mentality applied to higher education or as an investment success that demonstrates the viability of such an approach.
The very mixed picture is probably a manifestation of the confusion that reigns about the purpose and the place for on-line higher education.

Duplicative content development for multiple platforms
Lack of interoperability among learning modules
Lack of data sharing among systems
Difficulty in locating existing materials
Issues of unreliable quality of service
Absence of a convenient way to charge for use of materials
Disincentive to develop and publish materials a small amount at a time
Urge to supply Web-based templates and basic usage standards to accelerate the production of materials
Flexible, easy-to-use infrastructure might ignite a huge amount of activity

Does it not look familiar, the very same reasons that have been

Many eLearning researchers and practitioners feel the evidence is substantial enough to declare that online learning works and the field must move on to more important questions
ELearning has shown to result in effective learning experience for students although there is a need to find methods to reduce the learning curve and workload of faculty. We also need to better understand the value-added that higher bandwidth networks and new software and hardware technologies will provide to learning.
While access to new student markets has not been widely demonstrated, it is still early in eLearning’s development and program offerings are limited. Today’s growth and profitability expectations, as in many industries, are more inline with reality.
The hope is that the pioneering efforts of university faculty and staff will garner the attention of their colleagues and university administrators who will recognize, support, and spread these innovations across faculties.

‘The battle’ for students - the ugly word is customers - is just beginning. Institutions of learning which do not have merchandising skills are as handicapped as a golfer without a sand wedge. Staying on the leader board of education, and keeping the corporate snouts out of our tent, means learning to use some of their tools.’ [john hibbs, 2002]

Move to more important questions
The ‘battle’ for students is only beginning. Merchandising skills are required
Find methods to reduce the learning curve and workload of faculty
Better understand value-added by
Higher bandwidth networks/ New software developments/ New hardware technologies
Do not apply the ‘same old story’ use creative and innovative new ideas to create a more natural and more effective learning environment
It must be supported by top management, else it is doomed to fail
Use pioneering efforts and learn from their success and failures
How to change the mindset of the ‘negative thinkers’
How to find the right tutor and the right students

"The Internet is not going away - but flawed business models are." >www.fool.com

And Universities are very much business and need to make money and stay atop of the latest environmental changes to survive
Prasena tip: Put your innovative glasses on and check what needs to be done to stay ahead

The Dead University:
The Necropoli are not only towns.They are not just the parts of cities people avoid at nights.The Necropoli grow wherever people have lived, and, in the order of things, died.Universities often attract their own Dead if the university has been an entity long enough.The student who dies of meningitis and isn't found for three days.The part time student, run down by a car as he walks home from the pub with his mates.The student who ODs because everyone else said gear was great.The deaths add up, an uncountable black tide.And so the Dead universities arise, lectures taught by academics who got stuck in the rut and can't let go.Taught to students who swore that one way or another they'd finish their studies.
> poetry of an unknown citizen of www.geocities.com virtual world <http://www.quicktopic.com/15/H/uuwgcxXGJmePt

John Hibbs is the Founder of the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Global Education. John has spent his entire life in the business of imports and exports, with nearly 20 years of residence abroad in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. He began his professional career with a 12 year stint with Getz Bros., America's largest trading company. During that period, he lived in Taipei, Seoul and Singapore working for a billion dollar trading company that represented firms as diverse as Johnnie Walker, Armstrong Ceiling, Borden's, General Foods, John Deere.
After leaving Getz, John became the managing partner for a highly unusual American magazine which was published in six languages in 45 countries. He then built United Amusements, an import/export company specializing in software distribution for the video game business into the leading firm of its kind the industry.
John holds a history degree from the University of Oregon, an MBA in Finance from the Golden Gate University, and was a member of Special Forces while serving in the U.S. Army. He has four adult daughters.
Currently, John is the Director of the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Global Education, which is heavily involved in promoting distance education worldwide.
Global Learn Day is part global celebration, part conference, part experiment and part exploration," explained Hibbs. "We're demonstrating that education and training can be delivered affordably, from anywhere, to every nook and cranny on the planet." The yearly event starts at 00:01 Greenwich Mean Time (GMT), during Columbus Day weekend in the U.S., and ends 24 hours later at 23:59 GMT.
Volunteers passionate about distance education and making learning accessible to everyone, deliver presentations over streaming audio or video. Simultaneously, other volunteers weave together creative combinations of technology to transmit that information so that no one is left behind.
From New Zealand to Hawaii, the long way around, the event moves from time zone to time zone, with "harbor masters" in each geographical area direct-ing regional contributors. At some "port stops, " they hold in-person events in conjunction with the one happening in cyber space.
<http://www.bfranklin.edu

prepared for the Web by K. Pui