Posted: October 7th, 2007 by Alison Ruth

Categorised as:  Learning  Technology  What is... 

I just came across yet another attempt to define e-learning (or is it eLearning or elearning?)  As long as it's not eeeee! Learning!? I suppose we should be feel good.  (That big long eeeee is eeeee as in eeeee! mouse, not eeeee as in (wh)eeeeee!)  According to what Tony Karrer says here, there are heaps of different definitions and apparently no consensus.  I'm not going to add to that.

I think it's time we stopped thinking of the 'e' as standing for 'electronic'.  I think we need to start thinking of it as standing for 'enabling'. Which kind of broadens the picture because there's an awful lot that we do to 'enable' learning (and not all of it electronic, but becoming more so). 

I've resisted term for a long time and usually talked about 'online learning environments', which is a bit of a mouthful.  But it was more specific, it didn't obfuscate the important stuff underneath a catch all phrase, and it emphasised the totality of who/what/where/when/why/how of learning.  But people always looked at me funny.  Eventually, I started saying it, although my PhD only contains two occurrences of the term.

But if we take the 'e' to be 'enabling', then we are an 'e-learning' institution, regardless of how much technology we throw at our courses.  By thinking of 'enabling learning', then we have to think about the enablee (we being the enablers).  How do they come to us to learn? What do we want them to learn?  Where do we want them to take it?  Where do they want to take it?  These are important questions.

If we stick to the 'electronic learning' concepts, we focus on the technology.  Perhaps not to the exclusion of all else, but part of the 'how' (and it's only part of it) becomes central.  The 'who' becomes less clear (particularly if they are on the other side of the screenface).

With all this talk about student-centred learning, why do we use a term which foregrounds technology?  There's a lot to think about here. 

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