Future direction and challenges in e-learning: the web 2.0 approach

The web is beginning to change from a platform that previously only provided discrete packages of published information, such as web sites, to one in which there is active participation between users. These opportunities for interaction have been developed by a variety of new technologies. This change in the functionality of the current web has been called Web2.0 to mark its difference to the previous aspects of the web.

Blogs and wikis have dramatically increased, and currently there are over 30 million sites. These new technologies are essentially web sites that allow multiple users to read and post messages, with the result that active individual, and collective, learning is developed. There can also be sharing of files between users and file-sharing software has been developed, such as Flickr for visual images. At the same time, it has been recognised that the various potential learning resources require methods that join them together. This has resulted in the development of syndication software (RSS) to allow the users of blogs and wikis to be notified when new postings are made. In addition, social bookmarking has developed in which the permanent hyperlinks to the resources can be shared between groups of users, building up a collective annotated list of links.

Many current approaches to e-learning in medical education are only a variant of the “chalk and talk” approach. This content is developed for large numbers of learners in a “one size fits all” approach and rarely does the e-learning have a social aspect. The vision of the future of e-learning in medical education is that each learner will have a personalised learning system that is created by linking a wide variety of learning resources.

Dr John Sandars, Senior Lecturer in Community Based Education, Medical Education Unit, University of Leeds.