[art] Thwarted innovation: what happened to e-learning and why
Posted by: Bonnie Bracey

Why did the USA’s boom in E-learning go bust?
Zemsky, R.; Massy, W.F. / Learning Alliance for Higher Education, USA , 2004

This report examines the debate over the success or failure of e-learning in the USA. It tracked the changing attitudes about and perceptions of e-learning by faculty and technical staff over 18 months across a wide sample of US colleges and universities each with substantial investments in e-learning. It also mapped the changing supply of e-learning providers and products.
The study debunks three failed assumptions:
• If we build it they will come: not so; despite massive investments in both hardware and software, there has yet to emerge a viable market for e-learning products. Only course management systems (principally BlackBoard and WebCT)—and PowerPoint lectures (the electronic equivalent of clip-art) have been widely employed. At the institutions participating in the study, more than 80 percent of their enrollments in “online” courses came from students already on their campuses.
• The kids will take to e-learning like ducks to water: not quite; students do want to be connected, but principally to one another; they want to be entertained, principally by games, music, and movies; and they want to present themselves and their work. E-learning at its best is seen as a convenience and at its worst as a distraction—what one student called “The fairy tale of e-learning.”
• E-learning will force a change in the way we teach: not by a long shot; only higher education’s bureaucratic processes have proved more immutable to fundamental change. Even when they use e-learning products and devices, most faculty still teach as they were taught—that is, they stand in the front of a classroom providing lectures intended to supply the basic knowledge the students need. Hence, we see the success of course management systems and PowerPoint— software packages that focus on the distribution of materials rather than on teaching itself. (leer más…)

Fuente:[digital divide network]