The History of E-Learning

Lewis Carr takes a Sister Wendy-style tour of the tech that taught us.

Instructional Designers, LMS Admins, corporate trainers and everyone in between gather around your screens for a tale as old as... well, 2004. That’s right, we’re diving into the ridiculous history of e-learning, but starting in 2004 because learning tech life was truly crap before then. Buckle up because this ride is bumpier than trying to connect to LNER’s train Wi-Fi.

2004: The Dawn of Digital Enlightenment

Picture this: It’s 2004. Facebook has just been born, MySpace is all the rage, and somewhere in a dimly lit computer lab, an enthusiastic teacher is about to change the world with... PowerPoint presentations uploaded to a shared network drive!

Yes, this was the cutting edge of e-learning. “But wait!” you cry, “PowerPoint isn’t e-learning!” Oh, sweet child of mine, in 2004, if it was on a computer and you learned something, it was e-learning. We were easily impressed back then. But now I come to think of it, people are still using PowerPoint today.

Meanwhile, Moodle, the open-source learning management system, was taking its first toddler steps into the world. Little did we know this Australian export would stick around longer than our hopes for a good Crocodile Dundee remake. (Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles doesn’t count for two reasons, one, it was made in 2001, and two, it’s shit). And the amusing irony is that people still use Moodle to dump PowerPoints into.

2006: The Year We Learned to Share

Enter 2006: YouTube has arrived, and suddenly, everyone is uploading cat videos. E-learning creators, not to be left behind, jump on the bandwagon faster than you can say, “Charlie bit my finger.” Interestingly enough, that Charlie video was sold in 2021 for £500k and put Charlie through university. Now I feel old.

Behold the birth of the educational video! Now, instead of reading boring PowerPoints, learners could watch boring videos. Progress, people! Progress!

But wait, there’s more! 2006 also saw the rise of “Web 2.0” technologies. Everything was touted as “Web 2.0”. Wikis, blogs, and social bookmarking tools burst onto the scene, promising to revolutionise collaborative learning.

Spoiler alert: All of the bookmarking sites are pretty much dead, and Delicious got bought out by Pinterest (for a fraction of the cost).

2008: The Mobile Revolution

As 2008 rolled around, smartphones were becoming...well…smarter. The iPhone had made its debut, and suddenly, everyone wanted to learn on the go.

E-learning developers, always quick to jump on a trend (and occasionally off a cliff), rushed to create mobile learning solutions. The result? Courses designed for 21-inch monitors crammed onto 3.5inch screens. Crappy LMS apps and mobile versions of websites and themes. This is all before responsive design was standardised, and you were actually asked what version you wanted. Crazy.

2010: The Gamification Game-Changer

In 2010, someone had a brilliant idea: “What if learning was... fun?” Mind. Blown. Enter gamification, the art of adding game elements to non-game contexts. Suddenly, every e-learning course had points, badges, and leaderboards. Learning about corporate tax law? Here’s a digital badge! Completing a course on workplace safety? You’re now the mayor of “Safe Space” on FourSquare! (I know what you’re all thinking,...”I used to love FourSquare!”.

It’s now 2024 and we still haven’t really cracked gamification. We’ve written about it a fair bit in Dirtyword but the jury’s still out.

2012: The Year of the MOOC

2012 saw the rise of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). Suddenly, you could take courses from Harvard, MIT, and Stanford from the comfort of your couch, all while wearing your pyjamas. The democratisation of education was at hand! This was the future. We Brits could finally see what those college lectures from the movies actually looked like in real life! And guess what? They bored us to tears.

There was just one other tiny problem with MOOCs: hardly anyone finished these courses. Turns out, “free” and “easy to start” don’t always translate to “I’ll definitely complete this 12-week course on quantum mechanics.”

2014: The Flipped Classroom

In 2014, educators worldwide had a collective epiphany: “What if we make learners watch lectures at home on the LMS and do homework in class?” And low and behold, the flipped classroom was born.

This revolutionary approach allowed students to pause, rewind, and rewatch lectures as many times as needed. They could also fall asleep during lectures in the comfort of their own beds, rather than in uncomfortable classroom chairs. Progress marches on!

2016: Virtual Reality

VR burst onto the e-learning scene in 2016, promising to transport learners to new worlds. “Immerse yourself in ancient York!” they said. “Experience molecular biology from inside a cell!” they proclaimed. In reality, most learners just experienced motion sickness and an aversion to sweaty headsets.

2018: AI and Chatbots

Artificial Intelligence and chatbots made their grand entrance into e-learning in 2018. Finally, students could get their questions answered 24/7 by an entity with slightly less warmth and personality than their human professors. Things have come a long way since 2018. ChatGPT and Co-Pilot may have actually found a way for AI to fit more harmoniously with e-learning, but time will tell.

Back in 2018, these AI tutors promised personalised learning experiences tailored to each learner’s needs. In practice, they mostly excelled at providing hilariously inappropriate responses to simple questions and convincing learners that the robot apocalypse might not be such a bad thing after all. So, a bit like now, then eh?

2020: The Year Everything Changed

Ah, 2020. The year that needs no introduction. As the world went into lockdown, e-learning went from “nice to have” to “oh my god, how do I turn on my camera?”

Zoom became a household name, and “You’re on mute” became the catchphrase of the year. Kitchen tables turned into classrooms, and parents everywhere gained a new appreciation for teachers and Working From Home became the new norm.

E-learning platforms saw unprecedented growth, and ed-tech companies rejoiced. Everyone else just tried to figure out how to make their bookshelf look more impressive on video calls.

2022: The Metaverse

Just when we thought we’d seen it all, 2022 brought us the promise of learning in the metaverse. Now, instead of just staring at a screen, you could stare at a screen strapped to your face!

Zuckerberg hailed it as the ultimate immersive learning experience. We called it “Second Life with better graphics and more corporate sponsorship.” We remain unconvinced, but one thing’s for sure: virtual fist bumps will never be as satisfying as the real thing (fist bumps became a thing after COVID when we couldn’t shake hands). No matter how much money Zuckerberg throws at it, or how shiny Apple makes a visor, I think we all agree that we have never really moved past the smartphone.

2024: The Future Is Now

As we stand here in 2024, gazing back at two decades of e-learning evolution, what have we learned? Well, for one, the “e” in e-learning might stand for “exasperating.”

Although we think we’ve come a long way from shared PowerPoint files and glitchy video conferences, in many ways, we haven’t. Today’s learners have access to AI-powered adaptive learning platforms, immersive simulations, and virtual reality experiences that would have blown our tiny 2004 minds, but none of this has found its way into everyday e-learning.

But some things never change. Somewhere out there, someone is still trying to make learning tax law fun.

As we look to the future, one can only imagine what’s next. AI-powered sunglasses? Holographic professors? Courses taught entirely in memes? Whatever’s next, one thing’s for sure: e-learning will keep evolving, keep surprising us, and keep giving tech support job security for years to come.

Class dismissed. But don’t forget to upload your homework to the cloud-based, AI-enhanced, blockchain-secured, quantum-encrypted LMS before you go. And if you can’t, well... there’s probably an app for that.