Pyramids and spheres

Clive Shepherd

Yesterday there was much fun to be had at the eLearning Network 25th Birthday Party. The term e-learning may not be 25 years old but the concept certainly is and the volunteers at the eLN (formerly TACT – the Association for Computer-Based Training) have done a brilliant job of providing a forum for e-learning designers and professionals to share best practice.

My contribution at the event was to join with some of my fellow past eLN chairs to present highlights and lowlights of our term of office. Each of us nominated one item to be placed in the bin and forgotten about and one entry for the hall of fame.

From my tenure (2008-2011), I chose two contrasting developments, knowledge management and Web 2.0. No prizes for guessing which is the hero and which the villain.

I represented knowledge management by a pyramid:

Why a pyramid? Well, because knowledge management, as it was originally conceived, was another top-down, over-structured, IT-led endeavour, designed for robots not humans. It flopped terribly, not least because it didn’t capture the knowledge that people really want and need, which is now generally acknowledged to be tacit, anecdotal and grounded in real-life stories and examples.
Contrast this with Web 2.0, represented by the sphere (and excuse the rather amateurish application of Xmas wrapping paper):
A sphere because Web 2.0 is not hierarchically structured. Essentially anyone can and does communicate with anyone else, regardless of who they are. Web 2.0 has changed the world. It’s hard to imagine how we could have functioned without Wikipedia, YouTube or Facebook. Now everyone’s a teacher as well as a learner. No-one knows everything and everyone knows something.
You’ll be pleased to know that Web 2.0 was voted by the audience to the hall of fame. Knowledge management was beaten for the dustbin by our over-use of labels, as nominated passionately by Jonathan Kettleborough.
Top of the bill was Stephen Heppell who provided a characteristically relaxed, humorous and thought-provoking review of historical and future trends in learning technologies. Laura Overton brought us up-to-date with the Towards Maturity 2012 benchmark, which provides a number of interesting new insights. I particularly like their list of ‘Seven missed l&D opportunities’. There was also the final of the 2012 Pecha Kucha competition, with some fabulous entries. The winner was my theatrical Onlignment colleague Phil Green, who will now be insufferable.

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