E-Learning 2.0 and How Students Learn from Content Use and Creation

E-learning has been around for quite some time now, and throughout the years, there are a lot of improvements made to it in order to make it an more effective tool businesses and organizations can use to their advantage and growth.

During research, I encountered an interesting article that discussed about E-learning 2.0. The title itself, “Learning 2.0”, exudes technological advancement, an always welcome change for development. It spoke of the trends that are currently surrounding E-learning, and how it is slowly evolving into something almost entirely different.


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The central theme of the author tackles how E-learning and online learning is starting to become a learning platform instead of a medium. Content and learning is no longer delivered, but instead is authored or created. This is interesting mainly because E-learning has always followed a model that focuses on content produced by publishers that are then organized and structured into learning courses that are used by students to get information and gain knowledge. Content is no longer merely read, but is actually used. E-learning 2.0 is starting to resemble conversation instead of a manual.

It is starting to resemble blogging tools such as Wordpress, or Blogger which supports content creation—a personalized learning center where various content is mixed and reused according to preference. Instead of a system, E-learning has now evolved into an environment comprised of a collection of interoperating applications.

This personalized center is a place for students to create or showcase their works, hence making the entire environment look like their portfolio. This is appealing to a lot of people because creativity, of certain degrees, is innate in human beings. Having a portfolio provides them with the opportunity to collect information and organize and interpret them as they seem fit. An example is a student blog that focuses on book review. It will involve considerable amount of research, analysis and creativity. This creative creation of content acts as a tool for different learners to be responsible for the demonstration of the learning they have acquired.

Learning through E-learning no longer comes from design, strategies and content, but from utilization. This development in E-learning is quite a feat which would definitely appeal to an even broader audience

The Secrets to a Profitable E-learning Business

Like many aspiring entrepreneurs, I have my eye on one very important aspect of business and that is profit generation. Eventually, I joined the bandwagon of e-learning mostly because of its profitability, especially with the dawn of the internet/digital era. However, like many before me, I discovered that the unique e-learning market did not ensure instant success and riches. But there are those who reap financial benefits from it.

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How did they do it? I know for a fact that it wasn’t enough that it’s an ingenious idea and a great service product. Neither was it enough that it’s a popular innovation. And so, I did a bit of research online to find out their secrets to success.



Their secrets, as it turns out, focuses on customer satisfaction, trends in online culture, emerging revenue models and pioneering approaches. According to these successful businesses, there are some areas that can be explored in order to guarantee profits in e-learning. Ten of the numerous examples are: (1) become known and broaden contacts by offering a free product or service and building a reputation of competence and consistency; (2) provide consultation to potential businesses by achieving e-learning specialization. Some potential ways to do this is by implementing standards in e-learning, as well as ideal design models and so on; (3) develop useful software that penetrates the market through service solutions; (4) offer e-learning web development and customization that entails creativity, and finding an appropriate market; (5) develop affordable template games that support content mastery for every level and situation; (6) create relevant, quality content that covers media development areas such as videos, animations, graphics, creative and technical writing, simulations and games; (7) create a forum or association that offers free services for simple tasks, and a certain price for advanced ones. This can also generate revenue with membership fees or publication subscriptions; (8) offer “off-the-shelf” course content packages by building a course library; (9) create an advertising portal. In order to draw in advertisers, website traffic must be significant and; (10) provide content and translation management services that can assist organizations with content transition.

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These are only some examples of the different ways a business can thrive and earn in E-learning. It is important to keep in mind that a business success is highly dependent on creativity, innovation, user awareness, consistency, and marketing.

The new schooling of today – eLearning

I have finally finished my adult schooling, and while it was fun, especially with all the friends I got to meet and study with, it was really more work than I expected. Truth is, I actually engage in more mental preparation when I go to the adult learning center than when I actually go to work. I just didn’t expect going back to school would be as tedious, as tiring, and as mentally exhausting as when I was when I stopped back when I was way younger. I know that my mental faculties have not been affected by age. Besides, I’m really not that old yet, it’s just that I really wasn’t able to complete my schooling because I had to work early to support my family. My father died early on because of heart failure and I really couldn’t just let my mother do all the work herself, so I took it upon myself to help her put food on our table and get my brothers and sisters to a decent school, since I know that not being schooled will only get us deeper into misery and hardship. We were never rich, but we were never really impoverished either. To the best of our abilities, my mother and I did our best to make sure everyone in the family was well fed, had good clothes on their backs, and could to school on time, in the best of health, and had money to spend on whatever needed paying for. I am, however, not yet satisfied that my schooling is indeed complete. I think I can still learn a bit more, although I don’t think I’ll be going back to the adult learning center that I finished my schooling at. Instead I think I’ll be looking at some of the elearning solutions that my younger brothers have been talking about, and see how much I can learn from that.


elearning

I always welcome a new experience, and I have to admit that this will definitely be a first for me, since I have not engaged in non-traditional forms of learning yet, but I must say that I am quite enthusiastic about this.

An elearning solution advocate

I am officially getting into the elearning solutions craze, if you could indeed call it that. I just learned that there are elearning tools that can be used just as easily as most tools that are available online, this means I can spend more time learning the stuff I want to learn about, rather than just spending most of time trying to learn how to use the learning system and the tools so that I could get to the real learning part. Some elearning development tools have been made so complex, in an effort to make it the most “innovative, intuitive, and adaptable” cost effective training solution in the market that it seems the developers failed to take into account the fact that this software was actually made to help people learn, and learn in the most convenient manner possible, which is the entire point of an elearning solution. This type of learning tool was implicitly intended to be done entirely on the internet, the ultimate expression of convenience, so it really doesn’t make sense if the learning system was designed in such a way that it would actually take longer to learn how to use the system than actually learning the lesson that the learning system was intended to teach.

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But I digress. I had originally intended to look for a job that entailed shorter hours so that I could enroll in a short course to learn a new programming language, but with the developments I have been reading about in the elearning industry, I believe I am better off maintaining a full time job, and I would still pretty much be able to learn what I need to learn after my work hours, since I can very well do it right at home. All I need to do now is look for a learning management system that is best suited to me, which I don’t think will be too difficult, considering how many are already in operation on the internet. All I need to do now is look which particular learning system is easily segmented, since I pretty much can’t get modules that go on for really long hours, since I do have to rest before going to work.

e-learning tools: the way to a better social adjustment

While I am, by training and education, an educator myself, there are times wherein I wished that the better part of my education was simply garnered from e-learning solutions. That way, I would not have to deal with the more traumatizing aspects of learning in an established learning institution. While I did manage to do good in terms of an education, my current job description is proof of that, I cannot help but think how so much better of a person I would have been had I learned most of what I know through e-learning tools, thus allowing me more time to socialize and learn social skills, rather than being the clumsy oaf and socially inept person that I am today. Try as I might, I really don’t know how to talk to people, and they just end up thinking I am a weird or boring person. Others might disagree with me on this, since they would typically think that an e-learning management system would only keep me cooped up even more, I would like to think of the opposite, since I would be able to spend less time with studying and more time being a person and being with real people.

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I also think that having to complete an education from a learning management system would also allow me to get away from the professors and instructors who simply terrified me when they used to pick on me because of what they perceived in me as a social weakness, rather than simply help me adjust to my “condition”. I must admit though, that this treatment only prompted me to prove myself even further, I might not have grown to become the social pariah that I am now had I been able to nurture the proper social attitude and be able to relate with people more.