A Flawed Report on the State of E-Learning in Canada

A recent report by the Canadian Council on Learning purports to describe the “state of e-learning” in Canada.

Well, I have been observing the e-learning industry in Canada since 1974 when I was introduced to the PLATO system while a graduate student in Newfoundland.  In 2006, I published a survey of the e-learning industry in Canada where I identified over 300 Canadian companies with products and services to sell. I am a member and contributor to the Canadian Society for Training and Development (CSTD), and from 2004-2006, I was on the board of directors of CeLEA, the Canadian eLearning Enterprise Alliance. Most recently, I helped eLATED, an e-learning social networking group in Toronto, get started. It has now been running for three years.

I don’t mention all this to draw attention to myself, but to point out that none of the above groups are even mentioned in the CCL report. Out of the 145 pages, 3 pages are devoted to training and development, and for the most part, they quote people from 2001 or 2003. It appears that the authors didn’t contact anyone in the corporate training field in Canada to get up to date information. As Terry Anderson, a fellow Canadian, points out, even the recommendations in this report are a rehash of a 2001 report.

Eight years is a long time in an emerging industry like e-learning. The material in this report is badly out of date, not relevant to the corporate training sector, and mostly academic generalizations.

The conclusions, that the Canadian e-Learning industry is stagnant and falling behind the rest of the world, are probably true, but this group of out of touch “experts” have done a poor job of finding out why or suggesting what can be done about it.

Both Terry Anderson and Stephen Downes have written long posts reviewing the report, and have concluded that it is deeply flawed. They are right. (GW)

Canada’s Lost eLearning Decade | OLDaily | Stephen Downes | 25 May 2009

Tagged as: Canada, eLearning