Rosenberg+Quote,+Page+304

Rosenberg, M. (2001) e-Learning: Strategies for delivering knowledge in the digital age. McGraw-Hill, p. 304.

“Developing an e-learning strategy is essential in setting a direction for the organization and sticking to it. But to accomplish this, it’s important to be on guard for issues and behaviors that will surface. Some people who see e-learning as threatening will challenge the strategy as unworkable or not in the best interests of the client.”

If you find that someone on the change management team just can’t “see” how this is going to work, or how it will benefit the client (student), then they need to be replaced. Some in academia would reject the idea of a student as the client. They base this on the fact that students do not know the information and that is why they are coming to learn.

Yet, at the same time, traditional colleges and universities give a smorgasbord of course offerings for the student to choose. If they don’t know what they need, then why have them choose. It is a hypocritical practice founded in the Marxist roots of Paulo Frere and his liberation educational philosophies. Twenty-first century learners, who know what they want in life, can and should affect the delivery system of their education. Does that mean they dictate content? No, but it sure means they dictate whether they are getting it or not. If we are boring them with endless monotone lectures in classrooms filled with 90 students, or bore them with boring page upon page of HTML text, we are not engaging them and they will seek knowledge wherever they can get it. That, my friends, may very well spell the end of education as we know it.