What is e-Learning?

e-Learning History

Along with the development of Information Technology (IT) that is rapidly increasing, the need for a concept and mechanism of learning (education) -based IT becomes inevitable. The concept was then known as e-Learning bring the influence of conventional education transformation process into digital form, both contents (contents) and the system. 

Currently the concept of e-Learning has been widely accepted by the world community, as evidenced by the rise of e-Learning implementation in educational institutions (schools, training and universities) and industry (Cisco Systems, IBM, HP, Oracle, etc.). 

John Chambers who is the CEO of Cisco Systems says that for the next era, applications in education will be the "killer application" very take effect. The Commerce Department and the US education department even jointly launched the Vision 2020 concept based education related to Information Technology (e-Learning) [Vision 2002]. 

The term e-Learning contains a very broad sense, so many experts who elaborate on the definition of e-Learning from various viewpoints. One definition is quite acceptable by many example of Darin E. Hartley [Hartley, 2001] which states:

e-Learning is a type of learning that allows how to teaching materials for students to use media Internet, Intranet or other computer network media.

LearnFrame.Com in e-Learning Glossary of Terms [Glossary, 2001] expresses a broader definition that:

e-Learning is an education system that uses an electronic application to support teaching and learning with the Internet media, computer networks, as well as a standalone computer.

Another definition of e-Learning with different viewpoints can be studied in full from: http://www.google.com/search?num=30&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=define%3A%20e-learning

Of the dozens or even hundreds of definitions that appear we can conclude that the education system or the concept that use of information technology in teaching and learning can be referred to as an e-Learning.

Which One is Right "e-Learning" or "eLearning"?

Actually we do not need to be a dichotomy differences in the use of the words above. However, if you want to try to analyze, the phenomenon is a bit similar to the word "email" and "e-mail". Until 1998 almost everyone uses the term "e-learning" (with a hyphen). Cisco uses the term "e-learning" and SmartForce use the term "e-Learning Company". After starting to mature and widely known, hyphens start is not used. so that is used the term "e-learning" or "eLearning" (without hyphens). Microsoft uses the term "eLearn" as well as several other vendors.

Current usage of the word "e-learning" (with a hyphen) is still more than elearning (without hyphens). The search engine google.com prove this fact as follows:

• 4.15 million search results for the word "e-learning" (without the hyphen)

• 6.34 million search results for the word "e-learning" (with a hyphen)

After that some variation of the word evolved with the use of uppercase or lowercase letters to "L". Essentially there is no wrong or right, the two words that can be used as the correct terminology. This paper used the word e-Learning for uniformity.

Advantages of Using e-Learning

The advantages of using e-Learning are as follows:

• Saves time learning process
• Reduce travel costs
• Reduce the cost of education as a whole (infrastructure, equipment, books)
• Reaching a wider geographic area
• Train more independent learners in gaining knowledge

The e-Learning From Time to Time

A brief description of the development of e-Learning from time to time is as under [Cross, 2002]:

1990: CBT (Computer Based Training)

An era where emerging e-Learning applications that run in a standalone PC or a CD-ROM packaged form. Fill in the form of matter in writing and multimedia (video and audio) format MOV, MPEG-1 or AVI. The software company issued a development tool called Macromedia Authorware, while Asymetrix (now named Click2learn) also developed software called Toolbook.

1994: CBT Package

Along with the start acceptance by the public CBT, CBT appeared since 1994 in the form of packages more attractive and mass-produced.

1997: LMS (Learning Management System)

Along with the development of Internet technology in the world, the world community are being connected to the Internet. The need for rapid information obtained becomes absolute, and the distance and the location is not a barrier anymore. Here comes the title Learning Management System or commonly abbreviated to LMS. LMS is increasingly rapid developments create new thinking to tackle the problem of interoperability between existing LMS with a standard. Standard emerging example is the standard issued by AICC (Airline Industry CBT Committee), IMS, IEEE LOM, ARIADNE, etc.

1999: Web Based e-Learning

LMS development leading to the application of Web-based e-Learning in total, both for the learner (learner) as well as teaching and learning administration. LMS start combined with portal sites that are currently virtually become a barometer of information sites, magazines, and newspapers of the world. Content is also increasingly rich mix of multimedia, video streaming, and interactive displays in a wide selection of more standard data format, small and stable.

E-Learning Development Strategy 

When we talk about the strategy of the development of e-Learning, it is essentially the same as software development strategy. This is because e-Learning is also a software.