Every year I ask people what they predict for e-learning in the coming year. Recently I asked Johann Ari Larusson, a doctoral candidate in the Computer Science Department at Brandeis University, what he expected the biggest changes to be in e-learning over the next 10 years. His response was he expects technological and societal influences to make learning more social and collaborative. He expanded on this:

What I mean is that because society has chosen to use the technology outside education (it is a critical component of their everyday lives) they are going to adopt it for their educational needs either with or without the schools. We already see people asking questions/solving problems on forums, facebook etc.
I am a bit worried that things might not change for political reasons. Even though we know much about the merit of technology and learning very little has changed up until today. Many faculty and schools still rely on the old unidirectional, solitary approach to firehosing students with textbook facts, which they regurgitate on an exam.
However, I think it will be unavoidable for education to figure out by themselves that the new learning age depends on social technology. Even if they don’t believe in the benefits of social/collaborative learning, the world is going demand students that have the right skills (technological literacy) to fully participate. Society will change the learning whether the schools likes it or not. Its just a matter of whether the schools want the learning to occur on facebook…or some pre-tuned learning-specific social platform.

Do you agree? Please share your thoughts.