The Human Side of eLearning

This email invitation drew a full house to our January 22 meeting:

Join a rollicking discussion on the roles people play to make eLearning work. Coaches, mentors, facilitators, instructors, help desks, guides, and tutors – What’s helpful? What bombs? Can online learning ever be as compelling as the classroom? Cliff Stoll and Sherry Hsi will seed the forum with provocative (and opposing) views.

Clifford Stoll, PhD., is an astronomer and the author of The Cuckoo’s Egg, Silicon Snake Oil, and High Tech Heretic: Why Computers Don't Belong in the Classroom and Other Reflections by a Computer Contrarian. He is also one of the most energetic and entertaining speakers you’ll ever hear.

Sherry Hsi, PhD., is founder and CEO of Metacourse and co-author of Computers, Teachers, Peers. Metacourse helps organizations develop the human skills for online facilitation, collaborative learning, interactive simulations, and learner assessment.

Sherry Hsi

Things started innocently enough, with Sherry Hsi recounting the conclusions of six years’ research for Metacourse, which provides guidance on online pedagogy, design, and facilitation to corporations and non-profits.

• Learning is a social process, and the Internet is a social place.
• Discussion groups and online moderators are a necessary ingredient of improving eLearning.
• ELearning needs to be facilitated.

Announcing that he was not ready to break into small groups for discussion, Cliff Stoll caught everyone’s attention by loudly proclaiming, “eLearning is a fraud!” He took the floor.

“In you were hiring a plumber, which would you choose – the one with an on-line degree in plumbing or the one who learned first hand?” he asked. He recounted learning relativity from a caring professor, saying that nothing can replace individualized, face-to-face encounters between teacher and student.

Jan Bourret, an independent eLearning consultant, reminded Cliff that our topic was corporate learning. Often, it’s not feasible for employees to go to class. One-on-one teaching does not scale. The question is how to motivate and facilitate to achieve the best outcomes we can.

“Facilitation has no meaning to me,” said Stoll, noting that living in Berkeley, he habituated to the term long ago. Promising to shut up and listen, another idea occurred to him, that for 100 years educators have been in love with technology. In 1922, Edison said motion pictures would revolutionize the schools. In 1952, David Sarnoff said that educational television would replace mediocre teachers. There are other examples, all flops. “Is the problem that students aren’t getting enough television?” he asked, while jumping about the room.

Susan Duggan, CEO of the Silicon Valley World Internet Center, tried to redirect the discussion, asking, “What is the value of eLearning? What should we be offering our clients? How can we capture the passion for learning?” Learners can access 1 person or 2 or 20 or 1000. What can we do with that power?

Cliff: “eLearning is a terrific way to get a third-rate education.”

Mark Cavender

Mark Cavender, Senior Partner of The Chasm Group, asked “What about pilot training with flight simulators?” Muttering that simulations were a great way to avoid the person sitting next to you, Cliff said the designers of flight sims spent more time making the clouds look right than getting to what the pilots really needed. Plumbers were mentioned once more.

Another participant suggested to Cliff that he was setting up a straw man no one cared to defend. eLearning is more than replacing teachers with computers. It may include classroom, informal learning, OJT, learning in complex organizations, in corporate settings, and across physical boundaries.

“Where can technology make the most contribution?” asked Sherry as the group reconvened. “We already know a lot of what makes learning work:

• prompting for reflection
• multiple linked representations
• self explanation
• building trust through community”

Eilif Trondsen, Director of SRI’s Learning on Demand consultancy, chimed in that this paralleled the work of an early forum member, Doug Engelbart. Lance Dublin said his interest was in doing things we couldn’t do before. Napster for learning.

Cliff resumed his devil’s advocate persona, scribbling in red ink over the points Sherry had just made. Reflection? No, we need gut feel. Community? It stifles creativity.

While Cliff held his contrarian stance, participants kept trying to defend eLearning. Many were squirming in their seats and rolling their eyes. Some looked for the bright side. “Where’s the pony?” People learn when they get outside their comfort zone; does that work both ways?

At some point earlier, Cliff had begun to list the Seven Deadly Sins. “Sloth, avarice, lust, pride…” Pause. “eLearning,” whispered a voice, bringing down the house.

Sometimes, on-line learning is superior to classroom. In an experiment at Stanford, an on-line group proved more innovative than its face-to-face peers. Eliminating biases of gender, looks, speaking, age, and race apparently allowed the on-line students to work together more effectively.

On-line learning can be better for the individual learner, especially in global businesses that must overcome language barriers, cultural prejudice, and learning styles. Speed is the currency of the Internet economy, and the challenge is to keep sales and service forces ahead of the game; classroom learning can’t keep the pace; one-on-one with the professor does not scale.