E-Learning Myths - #lrnchat

Following on from my posting about a conversation I had at the LT 2010 Exhibtion, and after reading commentaries from other bloggers (notably Mark Berthelemy and Patrick Dunn), I started to gather together some e-learning myths for a follow-up blog posting. 

However, yesterday I found out that the subject of this week's lrnchat was online learning myths. Janet Clarey @jclarey reminded us of her 2008 posting where she presented some online learning myths - many of which, remarkably, are still in existence.

For those of you don't know about lrnchat it is online chat that happens every Thursday night between 8:30-10pm EST / 5:30-7pm PST on Twitter.  This is rather late for me in the UK (1.30-3.00 am), but when I looked at the real-time stream earlier in the evening, there were already some myth-busting tweets being posted using the #lrnchat hashtag, so I added some more!

• Myth "You need an LMS to do e-learning"
• Myth "You only think about social learning after you've done everything else"
• Myth "Open source learning systems are dangerous"
• Myth "e-learning is (only) about online courses"
• Myth "Tracking learning course competions means people can perform"
• Myth "An LMS provides an 'enabling' learning environment"
• Myth "'Social' learning distracts from real learning"
• Myth "You only (e-)learn when someone tells you what to do and how to do it"
• Myth by L&D "Employees can't direct their own learning; they don't know what to learn"
• Myth "E-learning means spending lots of money and lots of time on creating the perfect course"
• Myth "Social learning is only for Gen Y/Millenials"
  

These and many other similar tweets created some early conversation before the formal lrnchat session began. 

Although the lrnchat blog holds a transcript of the main session,  unfortunatelely the real-time feed for the #lrnchat tag doesn't go back as far as our pre-discussion.  Luckily though Guy Wallace @guywwallace captured some of it in a cartoon strip.  I've embedded it below but if the right hand side has been cut off (ie you should be able to see 4 columns) then just click on the image to view it full size.

Comments

[Mike Taylor]

Looks like I missed a great #lrnchat last night. Thanks for giving us these Cliff Notes...and for sharing the Guys great cartoon. Love it!

[Katrina]

Jane, I always look forward to your pick of the day!

The first myth you listed: "You need an LMS to do e-learning" reminded me of a blog our Vice President, Tony McCune just posted titled, "Do I need an LMS?" Here is a link to the blog if you would like to check it out: http://bit.ly/cwHLWb

Katrina
Chalk Talker
DigitalChalk

[Ryan]

Myth: Social learning distracts from real learning.
Truth: Social learning stimulates real learning.

[Jane Hart]

Exactly Ryan! The Truths for each of these Myths are far more powerful than the Myths themselves.

[Cheryl McNeil]

Myth: Instructional Design and e-Learning Development are one in the same and hold the same roles.
Truth: Instructional Design is the written format of the course/workshop/module. e-Learning development is the electronic form of the course, html, swf, etc...

Cheryl
@graphik1

[Jane Hart]

Cheryl, not sure I agree with this one!

For me, "instructional design" is about the design of any FORMAL learning content - f2f, paper-based, web-based etc.

"e-learning development" is about creating technology and particularly web-supported learning solutions - these could be both formal courses as well solutions to support informal learning.

However, because the word "e-learning" is now often taken to mean only formal (online) learning development, I am now using the term "social learning" - as for me this expresses learning more accurately - not just f2f, paper or online, and not just content but also connections, communication and collaboration with a "community" - this might be a formal learning community, but it could also be a team, project group, your personal learning network or an entire organisation. Thinking like, broadens out the whole concept of (e-)learning into a much more valuable area of work. So I don't just help people learn from content-based courses, but also from their interactions with each other.