Two Worlds

There’s a remarkable disparity within the world of elearning – probably common to other areas of work, but no less noteworthy as a consequence: namely, the divide between what gets talked about and what is being done. A divide between the world of the commentators and the players, if you like.

It’s easy to miss: if you spend any time reading industry publications or attending conferences you can easily get a distorted perception of what is actually happening in the world of online learning. This is mainly because the sorts of people who regularly speak at conferences are the same ones who regularly contribute to industry publications – and the vast majority of this group are not directly involved in managing elearning within organisations.

In practice this means that elearning events and magazines are something like a parallel universe – full of conversations about sexy but largely out of reach stuff: web 2.0, emotional intelligence, building learning organisation, blogs and wikis, virtual worlds, gaming, strategic alignment etc. If, on the other hand you take the time to talk to people whose job is to implement elearning their ambitions are decidedly more modest: rolling out a online induction course, improving completion rates, using simple authoring tools, introducing a basic level of ‘blending’, getting agreement to use a single LMS, finding a cheap but reliable supplier.

I confess to being in a fortunate position and therefore something of a hypocrite: I do have the luxury of being able to experiment at the frontiers of the technology, and I do regularly talk and sometimes write about these things - but I am conscious that the majority of my peers work within more severe constraints. In summary, I still think the day-to-day needs of the elearning practitioner are largely overlooked by our own chattering class, of which I am a part. Must try harder.


I saw some extraordinary films over the holidays – notably Avatar – a film which itself concerns two worlds and the conflict that arises between them. As you probably know the film concerns the identity crisis faced by a wheelchair-user living what becomes an increasingly desirable second life via the magic of technology. Aside from the fantastic setting it’s something of an allegory for the lives of the audience: just as our everyday lives are governed by attempts at a systematic reduction of risk and the unexpected, so our lust for adventure grows. I have heard it said that films are simply life with the boring bits left out – but you would be hard pressed these days to find a single episode in most people’s lives even half as exciting as those routinely strung together in a Hollywood storyline. Precisely those things which appeal to us in film are those things denied us in life.

I suppose I find it ironic that the more we control and regulate our everyday lives the further we find ourselves from the excitement and adventure that we crave. The film ‘Surrogate’ illustrates this quite nicely: in a future not far from now, an obese population lies permanently in the embrace of machines which allow them to live out their dream lives via a robot proxy – a self that, if not indestructible, is replaceable and upgradeable.

It is indeed becoming possible to separate out our thrilling virtual lives from our safe physical ones - but a problem remains: just as the classroom is now becoming a painfully boring environment for GenY, so is the modern workplace.