About

Something new is happening…but not everything is new.

In the last decade we have seen an extraordinary change in education technologies. New tools for communication, sharing of information and active collaboration appear everyday, but is education real changing?

I’ve seen many attempts to identify a change of learning culture named learning 2.0 in contrast to learning 1.0, but am this really something new? I don’t think so…at least not at formal education institutions.

Probably the last big change in education from a methodological point of view has happened in the seventies when self-directed learning appear as a new concept especially in adult ((and distance) education.

Malcolm Knowles the father of andragogy has described in “Self-Directed Learning: A Guide for Learners and Teachers, „published in 1975, as “a process in which individuals take the initiative, with or without the help of others.” The processes in self-directed learning include diagnosing one’s own learning needs, setting personal goals, making decisions on resources and learning strategies and assessing the value of the outcomes.

Many of the things that we mention today as innovative have been used since long-time. What is really changing is the areas in which is possible to adopt these concepts and the media that we can use to develop them.

I would identify the main present innovation in the way all types of media make it possible to collaborate and communicate despite location and time availability. Generations are growing up that are not anymore confined to single sources of information.

Something new is happening…but not everything is new.