Vol. 4, Issue 1, Part A (2022)

The transformation of our educational systems and new opportunities and ways to learn outside of traditional classroom settings-is one of the largest challenges facing India today. Teachers, trainers, mentors and subject matter experts will have new roles to play, and they should participate actively in helping other stakeholders understand the implications of eLearning, particularly at primary and secondary school levels. eLearning generate opportunities additional demand for content delivered through information networks, but eLearning applications will also permit citizens-whether in traditional educational settings, the workplace or at home-to acquire and enhance skills needed for the knowledge society. Without effective leadership at institutional level as well as regional and national level, there will be little progress. Programmes need to be developed that will provide leaders who are adopters of technology, who are inspirational and have vision and understanding of the potential of ICT, and who will push boundaries, facilitate developments and sponsor innovation. eLearning can have dramatic benefits for society by increasing the speed and degree of dissemination of knowledge, facilitating knowledge and skills acquisition, providing flexible learning opportunities for students and citizens, personalising learning and creating new collaborative learning opportunities.

In this paper we explore the use of structured synchronous collaboration in e-Learning. Although there is much interest recently on integrating collaboration tools in e-Learning environments, not much has been mentioned about the effects of structured versus unstructured collaboration. Here, through a simple prototype, we find that potential users of e-Learning platforms really liked the integration of collaboration tools in the environment and more specifically, liked the structured collaboration. Whether or not users liking the structured collaboration can lead to increased motivation to use the platform, or ultimately lead to increased learning, are still left as open questions. However, the answers appear to be “yes” and “yes”, as users of the prototype have suggested that the structure in collaboration leads to focus on the learning materials, while delegating the task of structuring communications to the platform.

Definition eLearning

“The use of new multimedia technologies and the Internet to improve the quality of learning by facilitating access to resources and services as well as remote exchanges and collaboration.”

Experience from industry’s early adoption of eLearning shows that technology is important but only one of the elements necessary to make eLearning work.