Yes, both corporate trainers and professors absolutely have to address the implications and opportunities of Web 2.0

But the contexts and cultures of corporate training and higher education are so vastly different.

Tom Werner posted some ways they differ.

Community building in online distance education is important to a successful learning experience because it alleviates feelings of isolation for both students and faculty members. Ruth E. Brown describes the process by which students become part of an online distance education community, identifying three stages: “making friends,” “community conferment,” and the development of “camaraderie” (Brown, 2001). The purpose of this article is to present concrete, specific, and practical pedagogical strategies to implement Ruth E. Brown’ 3-stage theory of community building in online distance learning courses.

Source: JOLT - Journal of Online Learning and Teaching

Random Mind attended a round table given by Bret Nelson of San Jacinto College at the 2007 Conference on Information Technology, on making a smooth transition to online teaching. Her post seems to have captured the essence of the round table.
Topics included:
- On the difference between teaching online and teaching face-to-face
- On developing your course
- Using discussion as a tool
- Strategies to help you cope
- Keeping the lines of communication open

In addition to a counterintuitive organizational scheme, integrated commercial systems have a built-in pedagogy, evident in the easiest-to-use, most accessible features. The focus on presentation (written documents to read), complemented by basic “discussion” input from students, is based on traditional lecture, review, and test pedagogy. This orientation is very different from the development of knowledge through a constructivist, learner-centered, or inquiry-based approach, which a number of faculty use successfully in the classroom. In constructivist pedagogy, the instructor’s role is to provide a rich learning environment, which often includes extensive social interaction, self-assessment, and independent projects. These techniques are better supported by Web 2.0 applications or by learning management systems that encourage such pedagogy at the novice level. The more a CMS promotes traditional pedagogy, the more likely it will limit faculty creativity—and flexibility and creativity are the foundations of academic freedom and good teaching.

Source: EDUCAUSE Quarterly

The conference opened today with a very good keynote by Barry Dahl, Vice President of Technology and the Virtual Campus at Lake Superior College in Duluth MI. His talk was entitled “e-Learning Myth Busters: Is Conventional Wisdom Wrong?”

Using clickers, he polled the audience of around 200 as to their sense of common assumptions regarding elearning

Source: Learning In a Flat World: Fun but Bumpy!

Jane Hart , from the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies wrote the E-Learning Handbook . This Handbook provides an introduction to e-learning trends technologies and tools. Each Topic provides links to Elearning examples, resources and reading lists. It is important to note that the content of this Handbook is continuously being updated.

Cathy Moore shows us what makes online courses boring and she also published an excellent slideshow for instructional designers detailing:
How to create compelling characters and stories
Ideas for adding “safe” humor
How to tighten flabby text
The best uses for readability analysis

Today the startups in eLearning sit in smaller niches or by attacking tangential opportunities in eLearning. They are going after things like:
- specialized tools and content that meet particular industry or audience needs
- games and simulations
- web 2.0 approaches that leverage distributed content creation, social aspects as part of learning, collaborative learning and editing.

Source: eLearning Technology