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© 2006 allbelievers 


[ what is eLearning? ]

computer mouseThis area will be a significant part of the allbelievers site in the future.  We want to share some of our expertise with others in the Christian field through an email newsletter on eLearning started mid-2003.  Its contents are being archived and accessed through the allbelievers site.  If you would like to receive a copy of this newsletter, please go to the archive page and fill in the very short form!

Issues we have in mind are:

what is eLearning?

A simple explanation of what eLearning means and the various forms it can take (see below for starters).

the national context

What is happening in the wider world (for example, what is LearnDirect in the UK about)?  Are there ways in which the church can take advantage of what is going on?

some on-line theology

A number of books and reports have been written about the use of the Internet in the service of God.  What views prevail?   Is it a purely neutral technology or are there limits to how Christians should use it?

eLearning’s potential

What is the potential of eLearning to support Christian growth?  How can that potential be realised?

evaluation of pilot work

A number of eLearning courses have been run on the original site.  These were thoroughly evaluated – what were the findings?

how to get started

What are the technical requirements for running eLearning?  What do you need to know before attempting to write e-courses?  How do you facilitate on-line?  What sources of help are there?  Who else is in the field?  What case-study examples are there to look at?

other eLearning sites

Where we get to hear of others running Christian eLearning events, we will link to them from here.
But what is eLearning?  Can we have a definition now?

Not a definition, but an indicator.  eLearning is a term that can be applied to any use of ICT (information and communications technology) in the sphere of learning.  So you could just about say that a simple program for helping a child with spelling or arithmetic is eLearning of a kind.  The industry and commerce sector commonly uses eLearning for ‘technology-based training’ (TBT), which might come packaged on a CD ROM and involve interaction between the learner and the computer.  Increasingly, such learning materials are delivered over a computer network or via the Internet, which improves the organization's chance of tracking learners and their progress.

At    we think that ‘learning’ will almost always take place in community with others.  So Christian eLearning will give people the chance to learn with and from others, which means being connected (probably via the Internet) and having a range of suitable collaboration tools available.

Come back another time to find out more about such terms as synchronous and asynchronous, different types of interaction, VLEs, MLEs, multi-media and bandwidth.  Or use the ‘sources of help’ section!

If you would like to be informed of when additional help material is published on the site, go to the join this community page.