Looking Back At What Took Us Forward

It didn’t always feel like a revolution then, but how far we’ve come.

It's twenty years since Martyn Sloman gave us his excellent book, The e-learning revolution.

It was a great stock take on where we'd got to and were heading with using technology to enhance and facilitate learning.

Martyn set out 21 practical propositions on e-learning and its affordances, many of which were useful guide rails to strategists in this field at the time.

In the context of 2021, the book now also demonstrates how far much of the world has come with the acceptance of e-learning and the myriad of new ways that technology can facilitate learning - ways many people could not conceive or imagine in 2001.

One of the propositions was:
“There is a danger of becoming seduced by the functionality of the technology, rather than concentrating on its use.”

This is so true; equally true though is that, even now, there are still pockets of resistance and refusal to accept the positive ways that technology can impact learning when it’s used well.

Those of us who joined the revolution twenty years ago or more have seen that positive impact many times over. In the last year, more than ever.