Learning 2.0

Was glad to know that more people are 'getting' the online-learning Gospel. This is quite an encouragement, especially since I was informed only recently by the rep of a major local institution that Malaysians still need lots of convincing before they associate 'online education' with 'real' learning. (That institution, however, has taken a bold step in obtaining exclusive rights to market the U21 Global MBA, the only 100% online MBA in South-East Asia I'm aware of.)

My own take is that, whilst 'offline' forms of learning should still be provided, for schools to NOT have an online element (or to not begin preparing their students for Web-education) is to act and operate as if the Internet hasn't been invented yet.

Some thoughts on how an e-education should look like (and I'm not excluding theology and Christian education here!):

• All lessons must be available online (like those of MIT, USQ, Open University, etc.)
  
  
• Lessons must take various forms (text, multi-media, etc.), soaking in all the glory of Web 2.0,  with the implication that Library 2.0 has to appear sooner or later
  
  
• Lecturer and student contribution to the learning should become near indistinguishable and learning takes a cyber-constructive (or connectivist) form i.e. my education 'emerges' from the conversations, the input, the debates, the projects, etc. No connections, no learning.
  
  
• E-discussions and e-collaborations are a central part of assessment - none of that 3-hour do-or-die-in-an-exam-hall crapola! The idea of 'closed-book' assessments must be banished from educational vocabulary once and for all! (except for low-impact formative self-assessments...)
  
  
• The 'system' should allow students to work and learn independently of time and space - one loner on the sandy beaches of Jamaica should be able to team-up with three executives in the concrete jungle of Raffles City. 

What else can/should we add? 

(Note: U21 Global presently offers all the above elements but something tells me we're only scratching the surface here...once the magic of cloud-computing, parallel computing and Web 3.0 really take off, heck, we'll be like fish in outer space).