The State of the Nation: e-learning in the 21st century
By Vaughan Waller (April 2004 Issue)
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In an address to the American Congress on 1 August 1790, President George Washington presented what was the first annual State of the Nation – although to be precise it was the state of the union at that time. Since then, it has been the duty of all American presidents to present this annual summary of the nation’s fortunes – good and bad (although they try not to mention the bad bits). The State of the Nation has now entered our language as a metaphor for any review of a nation, industry, company or even a family. This, then, is the ‘state of the nation’ of e-learning: its successes and its failings – a warts-and-all look at where we are at the start of the 21st century.
This article is not specifically about the e-learning industry itself. Whatever was written about which company is doing well and who is acquiring whom would be out of date within weeks and is of almost no interest to anyone except venture capitalists. As expected, the industry has flourished in some areas and retracted in others. More of the same will happen in the future. In any case, the industry is only going to be really buoyant and growing if the buyers are buying in increasing quantities. If this were so, then it would indicate that e-learning is showing, to whomsoever needs to see it, that it works – it produces a good return on investment and, as a consequence, organisational fortunes are improved. But this is not the case at present. While the jury is still out to a certain extent, discussing just how ‘good’ or desirable e-learning really is, what is the current state of the e-learning nation?
AN E-LEARNING UTOPIA
In an ideal world, wherever there was learning then some element of it would be using e-learning. Organisations that were growing in their markets because of the advantages of a well-trained motivated staff would be increasing their training budgets year on year. In every situation where e-learning was used it would be fun to use; it would contribute to ...
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