I am taking this opportunity to explore a subject that may seem obvious to many, but to me it shows a deep philosophical question that I just cannot avoid (I love me some philosophical explorations). We now refer to this era as digital, in all aspects of society, since it now seems we cannot operate without our digital devices, we cannot fathom entertainment without our streaming services, we conduct our activities through apps installed in our mobile devices, and the Internet of Things is already taking on many other functions around us, yet we keep calling our eLearning electronic learning. Why are we not calling it digital Learning? Dlearning, for example?
But this digitalization of our society, in particular our education system, has brought some aspects to eLearning that we need to deal with. For example, full digitalization of education is just not possible. Our minds have not evolved as quickly as our technology has moved forward. So, we need to use sound principles of eLearning to keep designing courses that support learning. Then there is the lack of expertise, it is difficult to find professionals that can understand both sides of the design and development process. It is hard to find instructional designers of eLearning that understand digital technologies. Finally, in this era we cannot ignore the role of security in eLearning and the impact of digitalization, which has brought this issue to the front of concerns to those administering eLearning systems.
Course design
Digital technologies have made it easy to complete tasks in the classroom that took a lot of class time. Now, students can report activities, complete quizzes, and other items completely online, in some cases from their own mobile devices (or smartphones). But we should not think that every aspect of a course can be converted online. COVID-19 forced many educators into this situation, and it was not a smooth transition. In many cases it just put those learners behind, once the measures against the pandemic relaxed, they had to make up the time lost.
We should consider that our brains have not evolved as fast as digital technologies, so not all digital objects developed for eLearning could support learning. There is some value in using these tools, but you must consider good design practices and empirical research that shows what works. For example, if you design a game that will help learners into learning some procedure, you will do them a disservice if you introduce extraneous materials like background music or unnecessary graphics. Introducing coaching (in the form of an avatar) or some other application that can provide help and support would help learners a lot.
Expertise
On the other hand, those who can design sometimes don’t have the knowledge to leverage digital technologies since their expertise is on instructional design and eLearning. It is hard to find experts in both areas but not all hope is lost. With a strong leadership and guidance, you can assemble a team that contains collaborators in both areas. This way they can work together in developing eLearning digital applications that support learning. You will emphasize close collaboration in all stages of the project. The eLearning expert will know what works in course design and can provide specifications of a digital tool needed for the course. The digital designer can take those requirements to develop a system that supports learning, guided by the principles laid out by the instructional designer. A third component is the user experience and the user interface design, which an expert in digital design might have in their toolkit of expertise, if not, it is highly recommended to bring one into the team.
Security
We have heard the stories on the news about hacking and stealing of data from companies, universities, and government institutions. This has made cybersecurity and network security all the most important when selecting digital tools for eLearning. In addition to this, it is important to have plans in place to deal with these contingencies so as to not disrupt learner activity or minimize the impact of such event on the performance of learners. If you have proprietary systems, it is important to have a team of security experts. In many cases, this team is removed far away from your own design team, but you need to find a way to work with them closely. It is important that your team understands the security measures in place to protect your digital systems.
If you are using third party solutions, you need to assess the level of security offered in the package during the negotiation process. If your systems will interact with this third party system, you need to have an expert in your team who can corroborate that the minimum requirements are in place so that no backdoors remain open or that other vulnerabilities may exist. A great idea is to ask for the system documentation that should include the security measures in place. Of course, if you also have an expert in the team, they can point out to vulnerabilities or potential issues with security.
Conclusions
There are many other issues that come from the digitalization of eLearning but I conside these three very important (for example, implementing mobile learning). It is not useful to have a digital tool for eLearning that does not provide the support needed for that learning. The course and the tools used along with it, must follow sound design principle and empirical research findings. But to implement this, you need and expert that can speak both languages, this unicorn might be hard to find. But you can assemble a team that rounds up this experience, and they can collaborate to produce the required digital tools that support learning. Finally, security is the most important feature that your systems must have, specially if you will open your system to a third-party provider. If you have no security member in your team, find out if your organization has one that can accompany the process of negotiation, this will give you peace of mind later, just remember you also need a plan in place for when the unthinkable happens.
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