Posted by Chuck Bratton.

E-learning 2.0—a.k.a. computer-supported collaborative learning—is the dawn of a new era in education. Educators now expect innovative, relevant, and dynamic software applications that meet the needs of the newly minted Generation Z’s—kids who have grown up in a highly sophisticated media and digital environment that’s hooked on social media. E-learning, derived from “Education Technology,” has its roots in educational film strips from the late 1950s. As it happens, our sister company, EMC Corporation, was among the first to provide educational film strips that were accompanied by reel-to-reel audio tape. The projector operator would advance the film scene by scene when prompted by a “pong” note on the tape. Fast-forward a few decades to the 1980s when networking was vogue, allowing the first truly computer-based training and assessment systems to come on the scene. Schools began incorporating technology in a big way and haven’t looked back. However, this was Stonehenge compared to the single most important innovation in the history of mankind: the World Wide Web. (Followed closely by penicillin, of course.) Web 1.0 has matured to the latest version, Web 2.0. While Web 1.0 was a browser-server based collaboration, where essentially every time you clicked a button the server performed the one thing you asked for, Web 2.0 is an order a magnitude more sophisticated. It delivers whole screenfuls of text, video, and interactivity all at the same time. Web 2.0 supports the E-Learning 2.0 concepts of user interaction, usability, social media, and interoperability in an entirely dynamic way. Classroom 2.0, which engages schools from across the globe in multi-user virtual environments (MUVEs), enhances educational outcomes and cultural integration, using tools like Blogger, Skype, and Flipgrid; this phenomenon is called Long Tail Learning. The Holy Grail in online learning, though, is Learning Tools Interoperability (LTI), where the content model is interchangeable with modern Virtual Learning Environments (VLE). Paradigm Educational Solutions is delivering portable training and assessment content from an LTI “tools” provider that can be “consumed” instantly by educators. LTI promises the end of learning yet another vendor LMS and forcing students to keep track of another user profile and web address. Our LTI training and assessment content is truly innovative, relevant, and dynamic. The old web axiom of “content is king” no longer holds true. Our future—and the future of education—is tied to delivering relevant content when it is needed. Now, “context is king.”

- See more at: http://blog.paradigm.emcp.com/context-is-king/#sthash.SDIq6G2q.dpuf