File this under Tip of the Iceberg Dept:
I saw an email this morning about "measuring Learning 2.0." I've also seen a Learning 3.0 conference and is it me or does it seem that the semantic train is getting a bit far out of the station.
Keep in mind, when Tim O'Reilly coined the term "web 2.0" he was describing not a technical leap so much but a break in way we had done business...that is, we were entering a new mode of doing things. So from that standpoint, I'm not really sure what all the 2.0/3.0 talk is about.
I have more of a glimmer what all the web 2.0, 3.0 talk is about since those leaps are at least tangentially tied to technical leaps like social media, semantic web and so on.
What is all the Learning iteration tied to?
How is learning 2.0 different from 3.0?
Are people learning differently?
If not, then are we doing business differently?
If not, then are the iterations tied to technical leaps?
If not, then what the hell are we talking about?
As they tell the kids in elementary school, words are important and are using ours badly....again
I love Jay Cross dearly and love what he's done in terms of informal learning but I think he'd admit that the term "e-learning" has proved to be an inelegant beast at best. We categorically underestimate the "e" and don't change our design to incorporate or even acknolwedge it and its not actually "learning" - its training or education or content but learning is a personal construct. I'll stop saying that as soon as someone can sell me some learning.
So could we just stop the hype please. That's what it really is. Everyone wants to be appear edgy and cool and if we did 2.0 last year we MUST do 3.0 this year. Shut up about it for a year, how about that? How about realize that a term like "2.0" is a literary tesseract - it is capable of holding so much content and change and by racing by it on our way to 3 and 4 and 5...we are once again missing the power and potential as we chase after the shiny.