Don't believe the hype?

So many questions and so few answers....

How indispensable is the VLE? Or more the point, how can we make VLE the defacto tool for education? Do we really need to, will it happen organically or will another platform march in and change the game? Are we reinventing the wheel once again?

What's the solution?

In all honsety there is not a silver bullet that will make a VLE essential for everyone as by its very name it's a learning tool and we all learn differently. Which leads me to 'Personalisation', this is the latest buzz word in education and I'm a big fan.

I should say I'm a fan of the concept and not the name, in that as it is a current ICT buzz word, it will be forever be perceived as another in a long line of fads within education and thus enthused, rubbished and abandoned in fairly short order.

But if we ignore the hype surrounding personalisation and look at what it wants to achieve:

• Moulding the tool or the environment around the user,
• Making the users experience unique
• Giving users the ability to share and comment

We can see that it is something to get excited about

Catch 22 then? we can't get excited about something, without damaging it? (Perhaps an e-learning observer effect?

Well, not quite what we can do is work damn hard to ensure that we under promise and over deliver. Whilst observing current trends, but at the same time not being restricted by them.