• silicon.com
• Management
• CIO Insights

By René Carayol, 12 February 2003 10:36

COMMENT In the first of his new series for silicon.com, Rene Carayol explains how businesses should now be viewing e-learning. Has its time finally come? Opening Scotland's largest ever e-learning conference on Monday got me thinking about the success of this method of education. Given the prevalence of the internet in offices and homes now - mixed with the 'life-long learning' message - aren't we supposed to be a nation of learned employees? It hasn't quite happened, not yet at least, and I think I know why. The past couple of years have seen a number of e-learning ventures hit the rails. They have been labelled a waste of time. Sure, there have been too many disasters but does that mean it all belongs in the public sector? Certainly those business people who look at the largest potential market - students and kids, not known as big spenders - may think so. And I agree - there have been too many good causes trying to pass themselves off as businesses. So let me tell you about my 13-year-old daughter. Her story is instructive, as it were. She attended a traditional girls' boarding school in London as a day-boarder for a number of years. It is a respected institution, where discipline comes first and where all the girls walk out with a traditional British education. Every year she also attends a summer camp, mixed in terms of genders, class, race and nationality. So last year she came home and told me: "Dad, I want to change school." Her preferred choice was the American School in London, so I agreed to look into the switch. However, speaking to the director of education there didn't go well. "Do you know the difference between American and British schooling?" he asked. "Your teachers are interventionists. They teach their pupils how to get through exams. US teachers are facilitators. They teach their students how to drive themselves." The UK - structured. The US - self-motivated. And the crux of the matter for my daughter? She wasn't allowed to join the American School in London because they would have too much work to do to 'unlearn' her. They thought she'd flounder as a result. Only the story doesn't end there. Far from it. My daughter is nothing if not resourceful. She took to the net and soon found tutors who specialise in preparing UK kids for US schooling and vice versa. Soon she was in a position to sign up for tutors twice a week and then do the rest of her schooling via distance learning, over the net. So we made the leap. She now lives at home and regularly sees other kids doing the same thing as her. They have an assistant who, for example, takes them to exhibitions in London. Her history teacher is in Wisconsin. Her math - not maths, mind! - teacher is in Chicago. Every two months she goes to the US, to experience what she's learning. She creates her own timetable and the camaraderie of normal schooling - apart from trips in town and abroad - comes from dedicated chat rooms and the picture phones which she and all her friends have. She is driving technology to get what she wants. And the upshot? We are hoping that by the beginning of the next academic year the American School will be ready to take her, without any catch-up classes or difficult cultural transition. What are the lessons for the rest of us? For one thing, it occurred to me we haven't significantly changed the way we teach in the UK for at least 300 years. But trumpeting e-learning and technology isn't enough in itself. I look at UK schools and see kids taught by rote, waiting for someone to tell them to turn on their PCs. I look at American students and see an attitude of 'learn wherever'. E-learning can work but it is not about the technology, which is now relatively cheap and available. What has been expensive is the tuition - those online courses have cost me a fortune! It is also not about brand names. What is important is providers understanding their customer base, making tools simple to use and having self-motivated users. I realise I have been paying for tutors in the US, not technology. The message for every boardroom and HR department out there is that e-learning is not a completely new world but a bridge between the old and new. I'm now cautiously optimistic. Rene Carayol is a former IT director and board member of IPC Media. He is now the CEO of consultancy Voodoo and co-author of the best-selling Corporate Voodoo and My Voodoo. He can be contacted at rene@carayol.com.