ST Online reported today that schools here might resort to e-learning [PDF] “if H1N1 worsens.” ST also reported that some schools in Hong Kong had already taken that route [PDF] with the outbreak of A(H1N1).

The articles are revealing in what they say and what they don’t. In Singapore’s case, “most of the 15 parents interviewed by The Straits Times did not think it necessary to keep schools closed.” In the Australian International School in HK, a primary school teacher was quoted:

It is surprising how technologically savvy children are getting from a young age… Students see the integration of IT (information technology) as a logical progression in their school life.

The same article then gave an example of the e-learning:

Instructors at a kindergarten in Causeway Bay record themselves reading story books and singing songs as if their students were in the classroom and send the videos out the next day.

If you ignore the standard we-are-ready responses that other interviewees gave, that in gist is what the articles reported. What the articles did not report is that such e-learning:

1. is still peripheral and something to resort to only in emergencies
2. tries to replicate what goes on in the classroom (when it shouldn’t)
3. does not push pedagogies, that is, it does not change the way teachers teach despite the affordances of various technologies
4. is designed to be e-doing instead of actual e-learning.
5. does not take advantage of what children are already using competently inside and outside the home, e.g., mobile phones, portable gaming consoles, laptop computers, netbooks, etc.

If you want to design e-learning, make it meaningful and logical to the learner. What is the point of replicating what they do in school when you have school for that? Take advantage of the medium in which e-learning takes place. To not do that is like watching TV with the picture off because you only used a radio before. Explore independent and collaborative forms of learning that promote information literacies and thinking that is both creative and critical!

E-learning is more reflective of the way we need to think and learn in today’s (and tomorrow’s) world. It is more informal and the problems are more complex or less well-defined. Multiple resources are used to solve the problem and there is often more than one solution to the problem. The process often requires a fair amount of effort from the individual and some form of collaboration with others to make the solution logical and meaningful.

Doing e-learning for its own sake or only in situations like A(H1N1) outbreaks creates negative learning experiences. As a result, it reinforces the negative perception of e-learning. Worse still, it frustrates our learners and does not prepare them for the world that they will live in.